


The Lantern or the Fire

by ifnot_winter



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Angst, Assassination, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Bad Decisions, Baking, Biting, Blood and Violence, Bloodplay, Boundaries, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Consensual Violence, Dark, Denial of Feelings, Dom Oswald Cobblepot, Dom/sub Undertones, Dysfunctional Relationships, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Families of Choice, Feelings, Flirting, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gentleness, Grief/Mourning, Gun Violence, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Italian Mafia, Jealous Jim, Killing, Light Dom/sub, Loss, M/M, Masochism, Mental Health Issues, Milkshakes, Multi, Murder, Murder Family, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Poor Life Choices, Possessive Behavior, Power Dynamics, Power Exchange, Pre-Poly, Protective Jim, Regret, Requited Love, Revenge, Roughness, Safeword Fail, Safewords, Self-Destructive Behavior, Stalking, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love, Violent Sex, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 54
Words: 54,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifnot_winter/pseuds/ifnot_winter
Summary: “What's the job?”“Nothing to stretch the limits of yourtalents, just distracting Jim Gordon until I say so.”One feral dog to cage another.Zsasz refused to rise to the bait and bristle at the deliberate provocation in Mario’s tone, regarding him as blankly as the space between the stars.  “You don't want me to…”  He tilted his head significantly, tongue clicking lightly against his teeth, “...take thecompetitionoff the board for you?”





	1. By monarchs or by sparrows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started off as partly character exploration, partly to scratch at the itch left by Zsasz's parting remark when he went to warn Jim about Falcone's impending hit in retaliation for the death of Mario. 
> 
> It clearly got away from me. 
> 
> Starts as a missing scene from s03e11: _Mad City: Beware the Green-Eyed Monster_ , with all relevant spoiler warnings implied.

I.  By monarchs or by sparrows

 _So can you, can you, can you tell me?_  
_If it's easier to be emptier but lighter_  
_If it's easier to be the lantern or the fire_  
_If it's easier to be a lover or an echo_  
_If it's easier to be the bull or the fighter_  
_And if it's easier to die by arrows or by tigers_  
_If it's easier to fly by monarchs or by sparrows_  
_By monarchs or by sparrows_

 _\--Bundles_ , Mariee Sioux

\+ + +

“You called.”   _You called_ me _. Why?_  The silent question hung on the air as Zsasz's sharp eyes assessed the dim parlor with its expectedly rich appointments, then fixed on the man who occupied the farthest of the two door-facing armchairs with the ease of a prince upon his throne.

“I'm a Falcone,” Mario shrugged, with all the casual, self-possessed entitlement that the pronouncement entailed.  

The assassin resisted the urge to shift his shoulders, hands tucked neatly at the small of his back in an approximation of military parade rest that was at once respectfully formal and left them in convenient proximity to his holstered GSRs, ruthlessly quashing the sudden flare of irrational, self-directed anger at how discomfited he still found himself in the other man's presence.

The phantom whisper of breath on his nape, the sibilant, subtle echoes of _freak_ and _are you really that hairless all the way down_ and the snickering, sly sidelong glances, in the presence of the other Dons’ sons, at home on leave from the finest schools the Don's money could buy, in the shadowy corners of the sprawling Falcone estate.  When the fearful utterances of _Zsasz_ were the smoke of yet unlit blazes and he was still _Victor_ , youthful and not entirely sure of his footing in the Falcone empire, newly in awe of the way that Don Carmine set and offered direction and a _code_ and an example of what was the true measure of a _man_.  A man of _will_ and scruple and honour, who commanded _respect_ with a glance and _loyalty_ as easily as breathing, and _saw_ something worth cultivating and nurturing in a young man standing unsteadily upon the edge of the abyss of his own nascent darkness. When Victor had still been a stranger to himself, still learning his own edges and desires and the limits of his own skin; what made his blood run to ice or quicken with sudden fire, what cruelties of the mind and flesh incited his stomach to turn and which he wanted to _own_.  

Even then, his own budding sense of respect and unwavering loyalty to that man who was _everything_ , the fixed point in young Victor's unstable universe, had rooted themselves deeply enough that the Falcone scion was rendered untouchable simply by virtue being _his_ son, and Victor himself rendered mute, despite the low twist of envy and ache he felt at the hand the Don pressed in pride upon Mario's shoulder, bright with the glow of his son's reflected achievements, the simple youthful want of approval all knotted up in Victor with the snares of something _deeper_ and far more complicated as he watched silently just outside the circle of limelight, awaiting the pleasure of his Don's next whim or directive.   _Your will, my hands._

A weighted pause, then came the glib counter, “You answered.”   _Ever the loyal dog.  Even after everything._ The corner of Mario's mouth tucked in, his eyes meeting Zsasz's squarely, the darkness in them glaringly apparent even from a distance.

Zsasz gazed steadily at Mario from behind the panes of the inscrutable mask that had been years in the perfecting, noting with detached interest the inner darkness in the Falcone scion that now welled up plainly for all the world to behold, brought forth into the light by the poison in his blood and mated to a curious spark of madness.  He answered simply, “You're a Falcone.”

Mario made a slight gesture of dismissal, and the man who had shown Zsasz in vanished back into the corridor, leaving them alone with the spectre of years of shared history spanning back into the murky fringes of adolescence clouding the air like blood in the water.  “I am.  And one of the things my father taught me was to always tailor the tool to the job.”

 _Just what Gotham needs, another alliterating asshole_.  “What's the job?”

“Nothing to stretch the limits of your _talents_ , just distracting Jim Gordon until I say so.”   _One feral dog to cage another._

Zsasz refused to rise to the bait and bristle at the deliberate provocation in Mario’s tone, regarding him as blankly as the space between the stars.  “You don't want me to…”  He tilted his head significantly, tongue clicking lightly against his teeth, “...take the _competition_ off the board for you?”

A flicker of rage darkened Mario's gaze, and his fingers curled tightly upon the armrest, “I want you to _keep him here_ , until the little hand is on the _nine_ , and the big hand—”

Blinking, the assassin briefly tuned Mario out as he assessed the coiling of the other man's muscles, the rising tide of that deep well of rage, wondering idly how or why he was managing to keep it banked despite the clear, familiar urge to do violence that was writ across Mario's eyes, Zsasz's own muscles stringing tight in anticipation of the next move.  Vaguely, he realized that Mario had stopped speaking.  “...that's it?” he offered gamely, vaguely disappointed that he was being tasked with a glorified babysitting gig, even if it meant he got to hang with dear old _Jim_ again.

Mario's eyes narrowed at the seemingly bored expression on Zsasz's face, jaw flexing.  “That's _it_.  Fairly straightforward; my father always spoke highly of your ability to follow instructions.”   _You couldn't finish the hit on him, but you can manage that much, right?_

Zsasz's posture stiffened ever so slightly despite himself, and he watched with carefully banked anger as Mario rose from the chair.  He marked the Falcone scion's approach with an opaque, almost reptilian stillness, every fiber in him tightly wound with potential motion.

Mario stepped right up to him, standing toe to toe with the legendary assassin, blatantly trespassing Zsasz's personal space in a way few would have dared.  “Thank you, Victor,” he intoned, a clear and mocking echo of those words which had been so treasured and coveted coming from the mouth of his father, then used the excuse of a condescendingly fraternal shoulder-clap to lean in and murmur directly into his ear, “ _good dog_.”

It was only through sheer force of will that Zsasz held himself in check, the hot burn of pride and old shame warring with the deep well of feeling he held for the old man.  His gaze sparked off Mario's, lit with the shared awareness that had the other man been anyone else, Zsasz would long since have succumbed to the impulse to do him terrible violence.

Instead, Zsasz stood stock still, paralyzed by a marrow-searing blend of inexpressible rage and self-loathing as Mario leaned back to take in the full effect of his parting remark, then stepped neatly around the frozen assassin, the dual report of the door handle giving way then pulling shut behind him reverberating through Zsasz's bones like a point-blank double tap.

Later, as he came to on the loveseat, testing the edges of the lurid bruise blooming in the wake of his most recent love-tap from Gotham's scrappiest and most stubborn detective, Zsasz had a brief, unforgivably traitorous thought.

 _I really hope Jim kills that sonofabitch_.


	2. By arrows or by tigers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim was instantly on alert, feeling the prickle of another presence in the dim apartment. He unholstered his service weapon and came around the corner to find Zsasz taking an unselfconsciously noisy swig of the pilfered milk. “Hope you don't mind, I...helped myself.”
> 
> Jim's eyes narrowed at the hitman's unsurprising audacity. “What do you want?”
> 
> “I'm here as a messenger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems dear old Jim's getting himself into trouble again, and flirting with crazy. Must be Tuesday.
> 
> Absolutely loved this scene; Anthony _nailed_ it.
> 
> Dialogue drawn directly from s03e12: _Mad City: Ghosts_ , with all relevant spoiler warnings implied.

II. By arrows or by tigers

 _He cuts into the wedding cake_  
_And licks the frosting off the blade_  
_He cuts into our palms, drops our blood into the lake_  
_We stand on the bridge and give ourselves away_

 _I can be good, I can be true_  
_You know I don't love anyone, but I love you_  
_I can be good, I can be true_  
_You know I don't love anyone, but I love you_

 _\--Chapel_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

After Jim put Mario down like a rabid dog, Zsasz found his interest in the detective piqued as it hadn't been since the first time Falcone had put out a hit on him.  He still owed Jim for having been unceremoniously whipped across the cheekbone with the butt of Gordon's service pistol at their last tête-a-tête, _after I had already let him go, how ungallant, Jimbo_.  The bruise had taken ages to fade and the boss had given him no end of grief and unwarranted fussing over it until he had finally had one of his girls go to the trouble of covering it up with concealer so the little bird would just _stop staring_ at it.

Zsasz's renewed fascination with the detective stemmed partly from an insidiously rooted dissatisfaction that he himself had not been the one to put down the _golden_ _son_ of the house of Falcone and fracture his too-perfect veneer, at once impressed and disgusted at Jim's ability to so easily go back on his sworn word to the Don.   _Traitors and snitches die the death they deserve,_ but there was something low in Zsasz’s gut that gave an unpleasant twist at the thought of Jim Gordon taking a long walk off of a short pier with a bullet in his back to slumber at the bottom of the harbor with all the rest.

There was even some small, ill-tended, youthful tendril of _Victor_ that crouched somewhere in his darkest recesses that was _grateful_ to Jim for dispatching his former tormentor where Zsasz could not, and at the same time despised the self-righteous _cop_ for daring to inspire that gratitude.  He was _Victor Zsasz_.  He didn't need _saving_ , from _anyone_.   _They_ were all the ones that needed saving from _him_.

Still, it was the assassin's deeply ingrained sense of honour as well as the grudging respect and fondness that seemed to have sneakily unfurled in him untended like some creeping vine that had somehow led him _here_ , killing time philosophically contemplating the sad contents of Jim Gordon's refrigerator while waiting for the detective to come home after breaking-- _just one shitty ancient lock, come_ on, _Jim; there are unsavory characters about --_ into the man's apartment.

Old takeout containers, a few longnecks of nondescript GCPD-approved beer, the better part of a bottle of milk, a graveyard of assorted half-full condiments at various stages of decay, the sorry remains of what might once have been a lemon but had since moved on to some further step in its evolution…  The assassin's dark gaze ticked back to the milk, which after a cursory sniff test proved satisfactory enough to take a deep pull from the bottle as he turned to study the spare details of the rundown little bachelor pad that the last honest man in Gotham, or as near to it as their dear, dingy mother-bitch of a city would allow, called home.

Milk in hand, Zsasz drifted, first for a brief snoop around the bathroom, a reliquary of midcentury fixtures in devolving shades of pastel, perusing the contents of the medicine chest with detached interest before moving on to the detective's bedroom to contemplate the small, nondescript double bed where Gotham's _finest_ laid his head after long days of paper-pushing, pummeling criminals, and kicking back on the prehistoric couch Zsasz had passed upon first entering the premises.

He was considering the merits of stretching out atop the faded coverlet, laying his head on the pillow and taking in the constellations of cracked ceiling paint and water stains to which Jimbo whiled away the insomnia, when the quiet protest of a key in the lock of the front door pulled him from his musings as to whether the detective's sheets would smell enticingly of sweat, gun oil, self-righteousness, and the surprisingly swank aftershave he'd spotted beside assorted pocket clutter and an old pair of silver cufflinks atop the dresser, or if the medium-count cotton also held the recent spectre of women's perfume.

Leaving the thought to trail like an untrimmed thread, Zsasz moved back to the kitchen, situating himself in the corner with the clearest sightlines to the living area just as the front door swung inward, followed by the detective's familiar, measured tread.

Jim was instantly on alert, feeling the prickle of another presence in the dim apartment.  He unholstered his service weapon and came around the corner to find Zsasz taking an unselfconsciously noisy swig of the pilfered milk.  “Hope you don't mind, I...helped myself.”

Jim's eyes narrowed at the hitman's unsurprising audacity.  “What do you want?”

“I'm here as a messenger.”

“Okay, I'm listening.”

“You messed up, Jim.  Killed the Don's _son_.”   _The little prick._

There was something odd underlining the assassin’s words, but Jim didn't have time to do more than puzzle at it in passing as Zsasz powered on with his surprisingly wordy reply.  “He's beside himself.  I've never seen him like this before.”  The strangeness was still there, paired with an unlooked-for depth of genuine regret at the grief of his Don, underpinning the ruthless killer's professionally smooth tone.

“I want to speak to him.”

“Oh, no, we're way past _that_.”  Zsasz's long hands spread in emphasis, startlingly graceful in their economy of movement, and bare of weapons, having since lulled Jim into lowering his own gun despite himself.  “It's only a matter of time before he gives the nod to put a bullet in your head.”

Zsasz's tongue clicked lightly against his teeth, drawing Jim's gaze from those piercing dark eyes to the surprisingly regretful downturn of the killer's pale, shapely mouth.

“You can try,” Jim countered with a grim, half-hearted approximation of his usual stubbornness, a trait with which Zsasz had in the past found himself grudgingly impressed and moderately infuriated for the man's sheer pigheadedness in standing against his Don despite the countless hail-Mary reprieves and second chances he'd been given; that blanket unwillingness to play ball and just accept that there were some things entirely beyond his control.

The tightness of Zsasz's expression, the sudden inexorable gravitas underscoring his customarily blank or diabolically jovial tone was as fell as a pronouncement from the lips of Death himself.  “I don't _try **.**_ And I never _stop_.”  He stepped slowly closer, as though drawn forward by an invisible thread, his voice gone low and intimate as a lover, as a knife in the dark.

The glacial intensity of his approach, the terrible certainty of his words, as inevitable as the tides, set a chill flame of anticipation in the deep of Jim's bones.

“You won't see me coming.  And you won't feel a thing. ”  He said it like a promise, as he insinuated himself into Jim's personal space like a dare, hands still held low at his sides.  The air between them spooled tight with potential, the low roll of thunder before the lightning strike.  “If we don't get a chance to _talk_ before then, it's been really nice knowing you.”

Jim was thrown off by the sincerity in Zsasz's tone, at turns unsettled and oddly touched by the genuine remorse in the set of that too-sharp jaw, those expressive, inscrutable eyes, the tense downturn of his mouth.  His was the strange, terrible beauty of a naked blade, forged in a crucible of fire and at turns beckoning and repelling Jim with the play of light and promise of violence folded into the cutting-keen curves and angles of its flame-bright edges.

“You're a good egg.”  The incongruity of the seeming compliment with the way those eyes shifted their focus down and to the side, sparing the detective briefly from their piercing weight as Zsasz stepped fully into Jim's space, far too close for comfort, or sanity, or Jim's sudden urge to hook his fingers in the supple leather of Zsasz's shoulder rig and haul him in even closer.  “Also, nice shot on Mario.  Never liked him.”

There was a lifetime of history in Zsasz's deceptively flip parting remark, another Gordian knot Jim couldn't even begin to pick at let alone unravel, because Zsasz was stepping past, toward the door, leaving Jim reeling and off-balance in sudden absence of the enigmatic killer's inexorable gravity.

Jim couldn't bring himself to do more than turn and watch Zsasz take his leave, shocked by his body's own visceral, not entirely negative response to the brief intimacy of the assassin's close proximity.

His heart hammered like a captive bird against the bars of his ribs as he struggled to patch his threadbare composure, gaze drifting back over the dim expanse of his cramped apartment, looking for anything out of place.  His eyes caught on the partially empty milk bottle, cap abandoned forlornly a few inches away on the old Formica countertop beside his half-full sink.

Jim capped the milk with a sigh, returning it to the fridge before shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over the back of a chair which he gripped briefly, shutting his eyes against the curl of adrenaline at the Gotham-typical outlandishness of being warned by his prospective hunter of the target he'd known he'd be painting on his back long before sighting down the barrel at Mario Falcone.

That same chill anticipatory flicker from earlier kindling low in his gut, Jim flicked a light on and turned up his sleeves, setting his sights on the stack of unwashed dishes and flatware as distraction from the elusive scent of gun oil, leather, and old pennies that hung on the air in Zsasz's wake.


	3. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need a _truce_ ,” Zsasz said, and when he lifted his gaze Jim stepped forward despite himself, floored by how exhausted the usually unflappable killer looked; the drawn, cornered-animal wildness of his expression at odds with telltale hints of redness at the edges of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene from s04e11: _A Dark Knight: Queen Takes Knight_ , with all relevant spoiler warnings implied.
> 
> Chapter title taken from the first stanza of the poem _[Funeral Blues](http://www.wussu.com/poems/whafb.htm)_ by W. H. Auden.

III.  Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

 _Never asked for to find my twin but there you are_  
_No I never asked for to find my twin but there you are_  
_And I never asked for the spools to un-spin but there they roll_  
_I never asked for the spools to un-spin but there they roll_  
_I never asked for to carve your ribs but here I go_  
_I never asked for to carve your ribs but here I go_  
_And I've never pleaded for a new skin as I do now_  
_No I've never pleaded for a new skin as I do now_

 _\--Flowers and Blood_ , Mariee Sioux

\+ + +

Following Falcone's funeral and the ensuing GCPD and media circus, Jim tossed his coat and keys aside after locking and bolting the door to his apartment behind him.  Fixed upon nothing more glamorous than raising a glass of scotch to the fallen Don and collapsing into bed until the next earth-shattering crisis, Jim made his way into the kitchen, seeking out a tumbler and the better bottle of scotch he kept on the shelf behind his sparse collection of spices.  He flicked on a light switch, only to nearly jump out of his skin upon finding Victor Zsasz perched in the vee of his kitchen counter.

Zsasz watched impassively as the detective visibly startled at his presence.  “Easy, Jim.  You might want to consider decaf.”

“Victor.  How long have you been here?” Jim demanded, feeling too damned tired for their usual dance.

The assassin's shoulders lifted in a noncommittal approximation of a shrug, his sharp features half-cast in shadow from the unflattering yellow gaze of the single overhead light, chin lowered as he seemed to find the place where his gloved hands gripped the counter's edge worthy of intense focus.  “A while.”

 _Right_.  “Why?”

“I need a _truce_ ,” Zsasz said, and when he lifted his gaze Jim stepped forward despite himself, floored by how exhausted the usually unflappable killer looked; the drawn, cornered-animal wildness of his expression at odds with telltale hints of redness at the edges of his eyes.

Jim had barely uttered a bewildered “ _Okay…_ ” in hopes of further clarification when he suddenly found Zsasz impossibly close, having slid down from his perch on the edge of the counter to shorten the space between them, something desperately bleak and terrifying behind the assassin's dark eyes that had Jim reflexively reaching toward his sidearm only to have Zsasz's quick, lethal hands get there first.  Zsasz set the gun aside on the counter behind him with a finality that had Jim tensing for a fight, leaning back from the deadly, long-fingered grasp that hooked into the knot of his tie.  But Jim found himself flat-footed, his internal gears grinding to an abrupt halt and hands falling to his sides when Zsasz used the grip on Jim's tie to pull him in with a strained, barely audible, “ _Please…_ ” that was consequently smothered in the sharp, bruising collide of their mouths.

Jim's slow-to-process brain suddenly caught up, filing Zsasz's redefinition of _truce_ under _things to ponder later_ , because there were gloved hands insistently worming their way beneath his clothes, his own hands gripping marks into lean hips, pushing Zsasz backward even as he pressed forward to claim the lost space, crowding the assassin in against the hard edge of the counter ‘til there was nothing but a long line of contact from hips to chests to mouths, the long-standing tension between them over-tuned to snapping point.

Jim pulled back for much-needed air, mouth feeling as raw as Zsasz's looked, and he couldn’t resist leaning in and up for another taste, then another, drawing Zsasz's reddened lower lip between his teeth and worrying at it until he was rewarded with a small, desperate sound that caused something hot and possessive to unfurl low in his gut.

This close, Zsasz's eyes were like the void between the cosmos, and Jim closed his own briefly to avoid being consumed by their endless, liquid dark.  There was blood on his lips, the taste of which Jim found distracting, until his attention was caught once again by the redness edging Zsasz's gaze, the sleepless bruises above the blades of his cheekbones, and the tightening of the killer's expression as Jim opened his mouth to call him on it. 

“Hey,” he said, with more genuine concern behind it than he was expecting, before Zsasz cut him off with a glare and a terse, “ _S_ _top talking_ ,” leaning in to bite at Jim's mouth again as gloved hands made quick work of Jim's shirt and tie, then dropped to his belt.


	4. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The particular shade of loss in Zsasz's voice didn't escape Jim; he was no stranger to it himself. He brushed his thumb over the pale arm beneath it, smoothing over the tally marks. Studied the delicate trail of goosebumps that rose in the wake of the light caress, so at odds with the roadmap of bruises they each wore from their earlier, savagely desperate coupling, carefully considering his words. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Were you...in love with him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Directly follows the previous chapter, with all relevant spoiler warnings for s04e11: _A Dark Knight: Queen Takes Knight_ implied.
> 
> Chapter title taken from the last stanza of the poem _[Funeral Blues](http://www.wussu.com/poems/whafb.htm)_ by W. H. Auden.
> 
> Comments are love, darlings.

IV.  The stars are not wanted now; put out every one

 _I'm going to get married today_  
_The chapel is full of crosses and bouquets_  
_We pray to the wax bride and her violet varicose veins_  
_Kiss me with forever where only death remains_

 _I can be good, I can be true_  
_You know I don't love anyone, but I love you_  
_I can be good, I can be true_  
_You know I don't love anyone, but I love you_

 _I'm going to get married today_  
_So please don't touch me, please stay away_  
_I know I'm not good, I've never been true_  
_But you know that I love him and I don't love you_

 _\--Chapel_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“When the Don found me, I was still...discovering myself.  He set me on a course, gave me... _parameters_.  A _code_.  He was…”— _everything_ —“…a great man.”

The particular shade of loss in Zsasz's voice didn't escape Jim; he was no stranger to it himself.  He brushed his thumb over the pale arm beneath it, smoothing over the tally marks.  Studied the delicate trail of goosebumps that rose in the wake of the light caress, so at odds with the roadmap of bruises they each wore from their earlier, savagely desperate coupling, carefully considering his words.  When he spoke, his voice was quiet.  “Were you...in love with him?”

“No one's ever asked me that before,” Zsasz mused, his tone both idly reflective and telling.  His eyes were opaque in the pewter-red spill of light pollution cutting between the thin, half-drawn curtains, blank gaze following the distant tracery of cracks in the ceiling of Jim's bedroom.

 _Maybe they should have_ , Jim reflected silently, inferring from the ensuing quiet that it was as much of an answer as he was going to get.  He pressed his mouth briefly to a pale, scarred shoulder still bearing the earlier imprint of his teeth, an unspoken apology before he ventured, carefully, “But you didn't care for his son.”

The tension Jim could feel drawn tight as a baited line in the lean body pressed near to his own echoed through him regretfully, and he dared another kiss to the shoulder that was suddenly much farther away than it had been just only seconds before.

“Not all Falcones were created equal,” came Zsasz's typically flip response, though the delivery fell flat.  The set of Zsasz's jaw was perfectly eloquent to Jim's eyes in the low light, the chasm of the assassin's gaze shaded by the phantom of some long-guarded and jealously fed pain.

Jim tucked himself back along Zsasz's side, sliding an arm around the younger man's waist with the care of one courting the affections of a captive tiger.  Twice as deadly, and as changeable, yet it spoke to whatever new and strange thing lay coiled and briefly sated between them that the tension in Zsasz slowly began to abate, as quietly as it had come and with uncharacteristic lack of violence, to the tune of Jim's thumb slowly soothing the cluster of hatchmarks scoring the taut skin of Zsasz's hip.

The moments stretched, ‘til at last Zsasz loosed a slow exhale and turned to tuck his cheek against the detective's collarbone, the spectre of the past looming still but at a greater remove, enough to bridge the space between them in the close predawn stillness after stirring once more to lazily steal their fill of one another.


	5. He cuts into our palms, drops our blood into the lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Long day at the office?” Zsasz drawled, eyebrows raising as he took a slow sip of his own milkshake, causing Jim to snort despite himself at the mocking echo of domestic small talk.
> 
> “You could say that.” He pinned Zsasz with a knowing stare. “Had a hell of a time giving a couple of hired killers the run-around.”
> 
>  _Touché_. Zsasz narrowed his eyes. “And did Jim Gordon _get his man_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So curious how this reveal/realization is going to go in the show. If they even give it the screen time it so rightly deserves...
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings for s04e15: _A Dark Knight: The Sinking Ship the Grand Applause_ implied.

V.  He cuts into our palms, drops our blood into the lake

 _I wake up and I creep_  
_Down the hall to your feet_  
_Where I lay like a dog for you_  
_In silk down to my knees_

 _Wet with spit, red with need_  
_Three fingers in, you go deep_  
_Reach inside me, please hide me_  
_Somewhere they will never find me_

 _I will always come to you_  
_When I'm weak and empty_  
_With my wedding night blues_  
_When I need you to fill me_  
_Like you do_

 _I wake up and I creep_  
_Down the hall to your feet_  
_Love he gives that I don't need_  
_Grind it to dust with my teeth_

 _\--Uncle_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“ _Hiya_ Jim.  Brought you a milkshake.”

Jim paused where he had been in the process of shrugging out of his coat, then followed through with the motions, leaving it on its customary hook by the door before turning to face his unexpected guest.  “Thanks.”

The detective made no moves toward the proffered beverage, instead eyeing Zsasz's booted feet significantly until they were removed from the edge of his coffee table, ignoring the unrepentant curl to the assassin's mouth as he settled back more comfortably into Jim's favourite chair.

“Long day at the office?” Zsasz drawled, eyebrows raising as he took a slow sip of his own milkshake, causing Jim to snort despite himself at the mocking echo of domestic small talk.

“You could say that.”  He pinned Zsasz with a knowing stare.  “Had a hell of a time giving a couple of hired killers the run-around.”

 _Touché_.  Zsasz narrowed his eyes.  “And did Jim Gordon _get his man_?”

“Time will tell.”  Jim dropped himself down onto the couch, the ancient springs groaning in protest.  He could relate.  “You do realize Penguin had nothing to do with the hit on Falcone, right?”

Zsasz's sudden, complete stillness made the little hairs on the back of Jim’s neck prickle. “Come again?”

The set of Jim's leading man jawline was grim.  “It was a setup.  Orchestrated so that if anything happened to Falcone, everyone would look at Penguin.  No questions asked.”

“You're _sure_?”

Jim met Zsasz's gaze squarely, chilled by the terrifying emptiness that stared back into him. “I'm sure.”

“He said as much, when I asked him, but little birds lie.”

“I'm the last one to defend Oswald Cobblepot's honesty, but this time, he was telling the truth.”

“He's not... _forgiving_.”

It was a startling revelation, that Victor Zsasz could genuinely crave _anyone's_ forgiveness.  Jim felt a brief twinge of jealousy, before ruthlessly quashing it.  “He means something to you.  Penguin.”

There was a warning in Zsasz's gaze, not to _push_.  “He's a good boss.  Keeps things...fun.  Little crazy, but...goes with the town.”

 _Doesn't it just_. 

“So if it wasn't _him_ , who?”

Jim blinked, uncomfortable to be suddenly caught beneath the weight of Zsasz's fully focused attention.  Like realizing he was marked beneath the red dot of a sniper’s laser scope, with no cover close enough to matter. “Who...?”

Zsasz’s head tilted slightly to the side, regarding Jim with that same predatory stillness.  His milkshake had been set to the side, gloved hands laid palms-down on his knees, expression gone to stone.  “Who _killed_ Don Carmine Falcone?”

Zsasz noted Jim's little tells with detachment, the unconscious movements of his hands, the nervous rewetting of his lips before drawing in a breath to hedge, to _lie_.  Watched Jim's shoulders tense, like they did before a fight, before…  “ _Please_ , Jim.  Don't make me ask again.”

 _Please, Jim._  The detective sucked in another sharp breath, ears ringing with the memory of those words uttered lowly in an entirely different context.  He exhaled slowly, leveling his eyes with Zsasz's.  “Victor…”

“ _Jim_.”  The killer's hands were digging into his knees now, impossibly tense with the effort of resisting the urge to unleash the low song of violence in his blood on the nearest convenient target. 

Jim's own hands itched briefly to cover them, drawn by the memory of silent tremors of grief twinned into his own limbs where his chest molded to Victor's spine, one arm tucked around to cage the other man's erratic heartbeat against his palm, his free hand settling over the assassin's bloodless grip on the bedsheets, soothing tense fingers into unfurling beneath Jim's own like a deadly, slow-blooming flower.

“Sofia Falcone.”


	6. The Sun, she would come, and beat me back down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Put your hands on me and I'll take them as recompense, _Jim_. Now _answer the question_.”
> 
> “No.”
> 
> “ _No_? _No_ what, _no_ you won't answer? _No_ you _didn't_? _No_ you don't want me to splatter your brains all over that schlocky landscape painting?” When Zsasz's thumb drew down on the hammer, the small, well-oiled sound hanging in the short space between them was deafening. “Use your _words_ , Jim. Be more _specific_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This rides directly on the coattails of the previous chapter. Up to this point, each installment was written to slot with minimal-ish fuss into the chronology of the show, but I am still working out how to reconcile the future of this piece with the rest of season 4; we may soon be heading even further into the vast badlands of AU-dom...
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings for s04e15: _A Dark Knight: The Sinking Ship the Grand Applause_ implied.
> 
> As ever, comments are love, darlings.

VI.  The Sun, she would come, and beat me back down 

 _My baby wears all black_  
_Says he's gonna make a hearse_  
_Out of this Cadillac_  
_He says I'm gonna put him in_  
_An early grave with all the_  
_Trouble that I make him_

_My baby says he loves me but I know  
He don't care if he kills us both_

_My baby wears all black_  
_Says that we both die inside of_  
_Every dream he has_  
_He says he's seen us on the road_  
_The car was smoking and I was_  
_Trying to pull the teeth from_  
_His throat_

\-- _My Baby_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

_Sofia Falcone._

Zsasz was still and silent for so long that Jim wondered if he'd only imagined speaking the damning words aloud.

Then he met the endless black well of rage in Zsasz's eyes.  The detective's hand rose toward him seemingly of its volition, as if there was still some small hope of defusing the time bomb he had just set off.  “Victor, listen.  I know--”

“ _Don't_.”  The terrible emptiness of Zsasz's voice cut Jim off at the knees.  “Don't say _you know_ anything.  Because you don't, Jim.  Don't.  Say.  Another _word_.”

Jim shut up.  He watched the assassin quietly seethe in his favourite chair, feeling awkward and powerless, chilled by the darkness in Zsasz's gaze, the leashed violence strung tight between his bones.

“How long have you known, Jim?”  Known that the woman Zsasz had _taken a knee to_ , pledged _fealty_ , whose ring he had _kissed_ , the woman for whom he'd turned on the hand that fed him--turned on the _Boss_ , and sent him back to Arkham knowing full well what it had done to him _before_ \--had orchestrated the destruction of the _Pax Penguina_ and killed her own father, _killed Don Carmine Falcone_ , his patron, his _mentor_ , _his…_  “Since the last time we _fucked_? Before?”   _Did you know all along, Jim, and still let me make a_ bitch _of myself and spill my guts to you in the dark?_

Jim reached towards him again, instinctively wanting to assuage the betrayal gleaming bright as a switchblade behind those dark eyes, but stopped short upon finding himself staring down the barrel of one of Zsasz's GSRs.

He was still the quickest draw Jim had ever seen, and it sent a queer thrill down the detective's spine despite the wholly inappropriate timing. 

“Put your hands on me and I'll take them as recompense, _Jim_.  Now _answer the question_.”

“No.”

“ _No_? _No_ what, _no_ you won't answer?   _No_ you _didn't_?   _No_ you don't want me to splatter your brains all over that schlocky landscape painting?”  When Zsasz's thumb drew down on the hammer, the small, well-oiled sound hanging in the short space between them was deafening.  “Use your _words_ , Jim.  Be more _specific_.”

“I didn't know.  Not the first time,” he amended, guiltily, “not until--I knew something was off.  When I confronted her about it, she admitted as much to my face.  She orchestrated my rise to captain, held it over me as leverage.  I was working around it, working to take her down, but then...”

“Then your _Ex_ put a bullet in her, only she's not _dead_ , Jim.  What is it with you white hats and _follow-through_?”  Zsasz's voice was frighteningly void of everything but a chillingly detached sense of irony.  And beneath it, the _rage_. 

Abruptly, Zsasz uncocked and reholstered his sidearm, rising smoothly to his feet.  “Thanks for being so _honest_ , Jim.  Good talk,” Zsasz said, holding up a hand to forestall any protest. 

Jim rose as well, drawn upward like a marionette on a string.  “Wait--”

Zsasz quelled him with a look, whatever he might have said dying stillborn on his lips.  “We're done talking now, _detective_.  You want to try and stop me, one in the head and two in the chest should do it.  Better be quick!”  He waited, expectantly, for a response.  When none was forthcoming, with terrifying good cheer that animated his entire expression but fell short of his eyes, “Thought not!”

Jim let him go.


	7. No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She lay there, _Sofia Falcone_ , all pretty and corpse-like in her paper gown, all the little tubes and wires keeping her breathing trailing over the side of the bed, a discordant symphony of machines painting the backdrop of the close, recycled air; a gangland Snow White in her glass coffin, waiting for some chump of a prince with a Jim Gordon side-part to come and kiss her conscious so she could sink her claws in and point him at the nearest target.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was honestly just going to let the implication of Sofia’s death hang there in subtext and move on to greener pastures, but my Zsasz muse _insisted_ ; he’s a tenacious little fuck when he wants to be. You have him to thank for this chapter. 
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of Jen Titus’s version of _O Death_ , because I am an old Supernatural fandom nerd and it was fitting.
> 
> Hope y’all had a splendid, not too stressful holiday, and ate far too much in the company of your loved ones.
> 
> Comments are love, as always.

 VII.  No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold

 _I've been home all day_  
_My husband's gone, they all say_  
_He's got a girl on the side_  
_While I stay home all day_

 _So I make lemonade_  
_Put on a dress and I go lay_  
_Out in the dayroom_  
_And I wait for you_  
_To come on over_  
_And give it to me_

\-- _Lemonade_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

In more civilized days when Don Falcone still ran the city, Zsasz would simply have announced himself and demanded that anyone not looking to catch a bullet clear the premises and let him get on with his work.  Times being what they were, he had opted for a slightly more subtle approach.

Armed with a dozen white roses, he swept past hospital security and medical personnel, charming the location of the incapacitated Donna’s room out of the desk staff with disappointing ease.  The weight of the nickel-finished M1911A he'd only ever used in the service of his Don was like the comforting press of a hand at the small of his back where it tucked neatly into his waistband, his customary sidearms obscured from view by the clean black lines of his topcoat.

The antiseptic smell of the harshly lit corridors made his nose itch, the low murmur of machines sustaining half-lives that should have been mercifully released muffling the purposeful pace of his steps as he approached the critical care wing.

Zsasz studied the matched set of rank and file GCPD uniforms stationed outside the door as well as the various medical staff milling about, debating the merits of whether to kill, threaten, or simply incapacitate, irked that he was even briefly weighing the value of the collateral if only for Jim Gordon's benefit.

He kept his distance, still considering his options, when one of the uniforms shifted his weight restlessly between his feet in a telling way, then with a surreptitious glance around, elbowed his partner and lifted his chin toward the corridor opposite.

Zsasz's mouth curled humourlessly.   _Nature calls._  Pleased by window of opportunity just afforded, he waited ‘til the officer was well out of frame, then made his approach, exuding an affable nonchalance entirely at odds with the murder in his eyes.

 _Tsk-_ ing inwardly at the lack of training and instinct implicit in being allowed to get so close with so little effort, Zsasz stepped up to the remaining uniform, standing toe-to-toe with the serious-looking young twenty-something and smiling widely.  “Hi!”

It never got old, that way that startlement gave way to alarm when they realized just _who_ was standing in front of them, far too close.  Far too _late_.  He let the kid off with a bruised larynx and a punch to the temple, dispassionately watching him crumple like an unstrung puppet.  _Didn't even get a hand on his sidearm; shameful_.

He tried the door handle to the hospital room and felt a strange blend of satisfaction and disapproval at finding it unlocked.  As a security professional, he found their lax standards frankly insulting.  _Too easy_. 

Hooking a hand under the unconscious cop's arm, Zsasz shouldered the door open and hauled the dead weight in with him, letting the door fall shut behind them with finality and turning the bolt.   _No interruptions_.  He relieved the prone kid of his service weapon, ejecting the clip and pocketing it as well as the contents of the chamber, then deposited the cleared weapon on an institutional-chic faux wood and metal rolling table before stepping up to the foot of the bed.

She lay there, _Sofia Falcone_ , all pretty and corpse-like in her paper gown, all the little tubes and wires keeping her breathing trailing over the side of the bed, a discordant symphony of machines painting the backdrop of the close, recycled air; a gangland Snow White in her glass coffin, waiting for some chump of a prince with a Jim Gordon side-part to come and kiss her conscious so she could sink her claws in and point him at the nearest target.

 _Daddy's little girl_ , Zsasz thought grimly, stepping around to the side of the bed and staring down at her for long moments before tucking the bouquet of roses beneath her hands and arranging them just so.  Part of him wanted to take out his knives and get to _work_ , or take off his gloves and feel the birdlike flicker of her pulse gutter out against his bare palms as he choked the life from her, but his window of time was narrow as it was, and he wouldn't have the satisfaction of her really _feeling_ it, besides.  A Pyrrhic victory, whatever way he sliced it, or _didn't_.  Best to keep things quick, and get the job done.

Zsasz leaned down to mark her cheek with his lips, a mocking echo of the affection he had watched Falcone shower upon his children, as well as the fateful _kiss_ the Don had bestowed upon members of the Family in times of treachery before catching Zsasz's eye and silently letting him off the leash.  “Give my best to your father, _princess_.”

Straightening, he drew the M1911A and threaded a suppressor onto the barrel before taking aim just above the pristine froth of the neatly laid roses and unloading three rounds into her chest.


	8. In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “...Are you alright?” Jim's disapproving, judgmental blue eyes were writ over with concern. And perhaps... _guilt_?
> 
> Jim's gaze flitted from the dormant boxcutter in the assassin's right hand to the sleeve pushed roughly to his elbow, a solitary, sluggishly bleeding tally mark fresh amidst the neatly soldiered ranks of its much older brethren upon Zsasz's left forearm.
> 
> “Peachy keen.” Zsasz laughed, wetly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So completely _not_ in any branch of medicine. There was a brief, halcyon time in childhood that I dreamt of becoming a vet, until I learned that that meant I would have to cut open puppies to save them. _So_. Like the nerd I am, I tried to read up a bit and do my due diligent research to make sure it was not complete trash, but TV depictions of the effects of gunshot wounds and all of the things are also wildly inaccurate, so I suppose I am in fine company, at least… I tried to be strategic about the details and let it be a blurry Rorschach open to readerly interpretation, but I am apologizing in advance just to cover my bases. Consider thyselves forewarned.
> 
> Follows a few steps behind the blood trail of the previous chapter. Title taken from a line of the version of the old railroad song _In The Pines_ sung by Janel Drewis.
> 
> Comments are love, as ever.

VIII.  In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines

 _Well, I used to wake and run with the moon_  
_Lived like a rake and a young man_  
_Covered my lovers with flowers and wounds_  
_And after the devil would frighten_

 _The Sun, she would come, and beat me back down_  
_Every cruel day had its nightfall_  
_Welcomed the stars with wine and guitars_  
_Full of fire and forgetful_

 _My body was sharp and the dark air clean_  
_Outrage my joyful companion_  
_And whispering women how sweet they did seem_  
_Kneeling for me to command them_

\-- _Rake_ , Alela Diane

\+ + +

“How'd you find me?”

“There were only eleven roses.  Figured you would come to pay your respects.”

“Clever, Jim.”  Zsasz coughed, irritated by a heaviness in his chest, and felt something warm trail from the edge of his mouth to curve around his chin and mark the grass.  On his tongue was the taste of pennies.  _Damn._

“For a ruthless killer, this skirts dangerously toward sentimental.”

 Zsasz's smile was wan.  “Sorry to disappoint; I'll try to play more true to type.”

“You put three cops in the hospital; two are critical.”

“They’re still breathing.”  The assassin was suddenly, incredibly tired.  The damp earth leached into his knees where he knelt before the the old man's headstone and the single bloodstained rose set before it; everything ached.  He felt... _old_.

“...Thanks for that.”

He grinned at the detective with red teeth, even as he pressed a hand to the hot stitch in his ribcage, despite the ingrained conditioning to _show no weakness_.  “I live to please.”  Pinning Jim with a measuring, inscrutable stare, “You tipped them off.”

“...Are you alright?” Jim's disapproving, judgmental blue eyes were writ over with concern.  And perhaps... _guilt_?

Jim's gaze flitted from the dormant boxcutter in the assassin's right hand to the sleeve pushed roughly to his elbow, a solitary, sluggishly bleeding tally mark fresh amidst the neatly soldiered ranks of its much older brethren upon Zsasz's left forearm.

“Peachy keen.”  Zsasz laughed, wetly.

Jim stared at the spreading darkness in the grass below him with increasing alarm.  “Were you _hit_?”

“Even the GCPD gets _lucky_ sometimes.”

“You need a hospital.”

Zsasz laughed harder, then coughed, a nasty, tearing sound.  He forced himself to his feet.  “Been there, _done_ that.”

Jaw clenching, “A doctor, then.”  Jim had his tenacious bulldog face on in spades.  It was less amusing than it usually was, or perhaps the assassin's sense of humour was just a bit threadbare, at present.

“Don't _trouble_ yourself, Jim.”  Zsasz stepped past the scowling detective, making it as far as the passenger's side of his glossy 1970 Chevelle SS before the horizon started to list disconcertingly.  He frowned at the smear of red his gloved hand left upon the polished chrome of the door handle when he went to steady himself.  Black spots swam before his eyes, and he irritably blinked them away, straightening despite the rampant line of fire making itself known along his side.

There were unwelcome hands suddenly at Zsasz’s sides, one of them inadvertently pressing against the point of entry through sodden fabric, and he hissed like a scalded cat before his teeth could lock down on the sound.  His hand came down on Jim's wrist, pulling it away, fingers grinding a bruise into the detective's bones in warning even as he cringed involuntarily from the touch.

He studied Jim's red-stained palm with detachment, even as Jim looked at it in horror.  “ _Don't_ ,” Zsasz warned, tone laced with an abstract sort of threat, but the edges of it were hazy, indistinct.

The blurred, watercolour edges of protracted blood loss encroached upon his vision, and he vaguely heard the detective calling out to him even as the dark swayed up to meet him.


	9. Do you want me on your mind or do you want me to go on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“_ Don't _tell me, Jim. I don't want to know.”_
> 
>  _“Lee,” Jim's voice was grim, pained. “_ Please _.”_
> 
>  _“For_ God's sake _, Jim,_ him _?_ Really _?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rather glossed over the requisite _digging out the bullet(s) with rusty tweezers whilst our hero/antihero/charming villain takes a slug of rotgut, manfully grits their teeth and powers through with or without screaming and/or breaking the fingers of a convenient and sympathetic hand-holder, before passing out from agony and/or blood loss_ scenes... Ratchet as they may be, there is still time in future for someone else in this charming tale to catch a bullet, so perhaps I will be feeling more self-indulgent later, but for now, we are moving on with our regularly scheduled trainwreck. To reiterate, completely _not_ in any branch of medicine. Consider thyselves forewarned.
> 
> Title taken from the opening line of _Fuel to Fire_ by Agnes Obel.
> 
> Comments are sweet, stiletto-wearing love, as always.

IX.  Do you want me on your mind or do you want me to go on

 _I hate to see the knife always under your arm_  
_Alone at night, cutting up neighborhood dogs_  
_You snuck me to your daddy’s bedroom_  
_Showed me all his guns_  
_You said, “Careful or you’ll blow your head off_  
_Make sure the safety’s on”_

 _Leaving things to die in the mud at the creek_  
_Pumping shotgun slugs out into the trees_  
_You run your fingers on the wood and feel its bullet holes_  
_It gives you something I could never give you or ever really know_

_You are sick and I hate you and love you for it  
You’re a wreck but I’m always going to want you_

_And I don’t want to know what you’ve done_  
_Or what you think about doing_  
_I don’t want to know, so don’t tell me_

\-- _Creek Blues_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

Consciousness came back to him in waves, like sitting at the sea's edge as the tide came in, the surf licking cold and bright around his ankles that time he'd accompanied the Don on one of his trips down south, all too-bright sun and damp warm air and days that extinguished slow, like a candle held at just the right angle to the skin.

 _“_ Don't _tell me, Jim.  I don't want to know.”_

 _“Lee,” Jim's voice was grim, pained.  “_ Please _.”_

 _“For_ God's sake _, Jim,_ him _?_ Really _?”_

Then,

 _“_ Jesus Christ _, Jim, you_ told _him?  He followed Carmine around like a dog, a_ rabid _dog, by all accounts; how could you_ not know _what was going to happen?”_

And,

_“He's a ruthless killer, Jim.  A murderer for hire.”_

_“_ Don't-- _he's not--”_

 _“He's not_ what _?  He almost killed_ you, _Jim!  More than once!  Does_ Harvey _know--?”_

Then,

_“--should be stable for now.  I've left you with the standard pain meds and antibiotics, make sure he takes them.”_

_“Lee, I owe--”_

_“_ You _owe me a_ king's ransom _in favours, Jim.  Don't think I won't collect.”_

At last, silence.

And a feeling like someone had tried to hammer a hole through the left side of his ribcage with their fist, blooming a veritable garden of pain every time he inhaled, but still.  Nietzsche wasn't wrong.

There was a warm weight resting over his middle, just to the right of the pain's epicentre, the splayed starfish outline of fingers and the callused square of a palm became wrist then arm then the solid, still presence tucked carefully along his uninjured side.

Zsasz opened his eyes to stare blankly upward at the familiar tracery of cracks and watermarks in Jim Gordon's ceiling.  He exhaled gingerly, half-relishing the answering flare of pain. 

The sequence of events leading up to him winding up in Jim's bed again scrolled through his mind like an awkwardly spliced film reel, replete with scratches, choppy scene cuts, and hazy fade-outs.  Long fingers absently tested the edges of the neatly bandaged wound, assessing. 

Zsasz cut his eyes toward the detective half-pinning him to the mattress.  The clean-cut features were lax and lacking their usual mulishness, sleepless bruises beneath the somnolent fans of lashes Zsasz had curiously traced on better mornings standing stark against Jim's faded tan as he drooled charmingly onto the assassin's shoulder.

  _Well.  Fuck_.


	10. Never asked for to carve your ribs but here I go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You should be in _bed_.” Jim grimly stepped close to test the edges of the massive square of gauze and surgical tape, newly Rorschached with scarlet, on Zsasz's side. He scrupulously ignored the fact that Zsasz was standing barefoot and shirtless in his kitchen, grey-gold morning light warming his white skin to marble and turning the tidy ranks of his kill-count to silver Braille.
> 
> “Only if you promise to _keep_ me there,” Zsasz purred, brought up short by the low hiss that escaped him as the edge of the dressing was peeled up, the adhesive on the tape pulling despite the care he could feel in Jim's touch as the detective inspected the wound beneath with a tense, unhappy expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously want to swat these two with a newspaper. They are _ridiculous_. This part ended up being a bit longer than expected because these two knuckleheads would _not_ stop shamelessly flirting and/or not-talking at one another. 
> 
> Again, _not_ a medical professional of any stripe, but Zsasz is one tough cookie and from the way he got right back up after taking that hit in the show seems to process pain differently/be able to compartmentalize like a boss; I fully believe that a measly old GSW wouldn’t keep him vertical for too long, much to the consternation of all assembled. He and Jim deserve each other, really. 
> 
> Comments are like freshly baked pumpkin biscuits, darlings.

 X.  Never asked for to carve your ribs but here I go

 _I was in the coal mine_  
_Picking up diamonds_  
_That the miners had left behind_  
_And I admired their cold shine_  
_Simple and bright_  
_And I pocketed many_  
_In the cavernous night_  
_Clear when held up to the light_

_You belong to no one_  
_You are easy to be around cause_  
_You belong to no one_  
_You are easy to be around because_  
_You belong to no one_  
_You are easy to be around_  
_And I scattered them on the ground_

\-- _Easy to be Around_ , Diane Cluck

\+ + +

“What the hell are you doing _up_?”

“ _Hey_ , Jim.  I made breakfast!”  Zsasz smiled widely, heedless of the low-level haziness at the back of his mind, the throb of fire in his side that had flared into technicolour rainbows when he'd forced himself out from beneath Jim's arm and upright, eventually subsiding into a tolerably debilitating disco beat that he had mostly been able to compartmentalize.

“You should be in _bed_.”  Jim grimly stepped close to test the edges of the massive square of gauze and surgical tape, newly Rorschached with scarlet, on Zsasz's side.  He scrupulously ignored the fact that Zsasz was standing barefoot and shirtless in his kitchen, grey-gold morning light warming his white skin to marble and turning the tidy ranks of his kill-count to silver Braille.

“Only if you promise to _keep_ me there,” Zsasz purred, brought up short by the low hiss that escaped him as the edge of the dressing was peeled up, the adhesive on the tape pulling despite the care he could feel in Jim's touch as the detective inspected the wound beneath with a tense, unhappy expression.

“You pulled your stitches.”

Zsasz glanced down, lips pursing into a considering frown.  “Only a little.  It's _fine_ , Jim.  Try a pumpkin biscuit.”

“...I don't recall having any pumpkin.”  Or much of anything else, really; he really could stand to go to the store more often, rather than resorting to takeaway.   Horrified, “Did you go _out_?”

“ _Relax_ , detective.” Zsasz pivoted on his heel, smoothing the bandage back down and placing himself conveniently out of reach as he passed Jim a plate heavy with kale scramble and biscuits then handing him a fork.  “I had Xue Lin stop at the store.  You really ought to better stock your kitchen; what if you had _company_?”

Jim frowned at the unfamiliar name, and the thought of one of Zsasz's leather-clad accomplices being allowed access to his apartment, to _where he lived_ , while he was asleep and the assassin was apparently making himself comfortable in Jim's sad little kitchen playing Suzy homemaker and tearing his damned stitches.  “Perish the thought that I not be able to ply them with breakfast biscuits, should the situation arise,” Jim muttered, dry as dirt and with as much sass as he could muster.  “Bed, _now_.”

Zsasz smirked.  “So _forceful_.  Going to _read me_ my _rights_ , Jim?  Make me call you _Detective Gordon_?”

Cheeks colouring, much to Zsasz's delight, Jim ground out, “Maybe later.”  Pushing down his irritation and eyeing the assassin with concern, noting the slight sway to his movements and the subtle hunch to his shoulders favouring his injured side, “If I join you for breakfast in bed, will you _please_ lie back down and let me change your bandages?”

Considering a salty remark about crumbs in the bed, Zsasz opted to keep it in reserve, staring down the detective's endearingly put out expression for a long moment before shrugging in concession only to regret it, _hard_.  Expression tightening and paling even further beneath the bone china pallor that was his standard complexion, Zsasz suppressed a grimace at the angry protest from the hole in his side.

He carefully evaded the steadying hands that lifted toward him, ducking the weight of Jim's concerned gaze.  He hated feeling weak, in front of _anyone_ , and Jim had already seen far more tender underbelly than Zsasz could afford.

Conceding that it was a more than marginal possibility he might drop the plate on the way to the bedroom, he left Jim to it and made his way back into the bedroom with what remained of his dignity.

A hastily assembled tray of biscuits, scramble, coffee, and an ominously tall glass of water in his hands, Jim watched Zsasz gingerly lower himself to sit on the side of the bed, biting down on the urge to _help_.  Bending with a freshly patched GSW?  Not fun.  “How the hell did you even get pants on?”

“...Slowly?”  Xue Lin helped, but Zsasz wasn't telling Jim _that_.  He could only take so much overt mother-henning; reminded him of the _Boss_.  His girls were markedly more subtle about it.  He made a note to be more appreciative; do something nice for them when he got home.  If he ever made it out of the clutches of _Nurse Gordon_ , who had put the tray aside and was propping him up against the headboard with a frankly insulting number of pillows.  That tense, worried little stitch was present between Jim's eyebrows, jaw set like a bulldog about to become a block of immovable concrete halfway through his evening walk.

Zsasz winced, despite himself, more at the _fussing_ than the twinge of pain his hand instinctively lifted to cover, only to have his fingers batted away as Jim started messing with his bandage.  “Much as I enjoy being _manhandled_ , don't quit your day job, Jim.  You're a terrible nurse.”

“And _you're_ a terrible patient.”

“ _Fair_.” Zsasz grinned, shutting his eyes and leaning back into the pillows, resigning himself to his fate.  “I could get you a set of those pink scrubs with puppies and hearts on them, though.”

“If that does it for you.”  At the lackluster riposte, Zsasz slitted his eyes open to find Jim staring at his wound, expression heavy with guilt and other emotions Zsasz found slightly more difficult to parse.  “You got shot because of me.  Because _I_ called it in.”

Zsasz shrugged it off, _carefully_ this time.  “You were doing your job.”

“Sofia would have died either way,” Jim said grimly, seemingly intent on beating himself up over it.  There were some perfectly obliging ladies with canes and cat-o-nines the assassin would gladly introduce Jim to if he had some things he _really_ wanted to work out…

“Yes,” Zsasz answered simply, because it was the truth.  “She had to die, Jim.  _Blood for blood_.”

“ _You_ could have died.”

“You should know I'm harder to kill than _that_ , detective.”

Jim's expression twisted, words crowding his throat that he couldn't even begin to articulate.  He swallowed them back, lowering his gaze to the roll of surgical tape digging into his palm, the mostly tidy starburst of only _slightly_ pulled stitches at the heart of the puffy, inflamed skin on Zsasz's side.  “...Yeah.” 

The detective cleared his throat, determinedly finishing changing Zsasz's bandage before turning toward the tray set haphazardly on the nightstand, settling it more securely before reaching for the amber pill bottles clustered beside it.

Zsasz's plucked them neatly from Jim’s grasp, giving the labels a cursory scan before clicking his tongue against his teeth, the bottle of painkillers promptly tossed aside.  Studying the label on the antibiotics with more interest, Zsasz popped the lid and knocked a couple back, accepting the water Jim glaringly handed him and taking a small, pointed sip before suddenly realizing how thirsty he was and draining the glass.

Leaning carefully across Zsasz to retrieve the painkillers, Jim carefully read the dosage before decisively unscrewing the lid and shaking a few out.

“Victor--”

“ _No_.”

“--you're in _pain_.”

“ _I'm fine_.”  Lip curling dismissively, Zsasz bared his teeth at the palmful of innocuous pastel pills Jim held out to him, matching the detective's mulish stare with a mutinous, narrow-eyed stare of his own.  “Take that shit away.”  _Unless you want to lose a hand.  In which case, happy to oblige._

Teeth grinding audibly, Jim let the stareoff stretch tight between them, unstoppable force and unbudging object, briefly entertaining the merits of trying to _force_ the assassin to take his medicine before promptly dismissing it out of hand at the answering ember flaring to life in Zsasz's black gaze, as though the other man could read the intent scrolling behind Jim's eyes.   _Try me._

Or maybe Jim just was _that_ transparent.  Either way, they had clearly spent too much time together if they were able to effectively pack so much communication into a single look.

Exhaling deeply, Jim set the pills on the edge of the breakfast tray and held his open palms upward in brief concession to their stalemate.

He glanced at the rapidly cooling food, quirking an eyebrow at Zsasz and receiving a curt head shake to the negative.

 _It's when a dog_ doesn't _eat_ … Frowning in confusion, Jim glanced back at the plate before raising both eyebrows at the assassin, who had sunk further back into the mound of pillows, his weariness more readily apparent, the edges of his expression tellingly tight though heaven forfend he admit to the lowly mortal weakness of feeling something so inconsequential as _pain_.  _Pot, this is kettle._  “...Then why cook?”

Zsasz didn't dignify that with a response, simply blinking slowly at the detective as though he were a particularly stupid puppy that was incredibly lucky to have been born cute before leaning himself back into the embrace of the pillows and pointedly shutting his eyes.

... _Right_.  Feeling heat rise in his face, Jim stared at the seemingly checked out assassin for long moments before casting about awkwardly and finally reaching for the plate of healthy-looking scramble and lukewarm biscuits.

After a brief silence broken only by the low scrape of fork to porcelain as Jim took a few bites, he offered quietly, “...It's really good.”

Perhaps Jim only imagined it, but he thought he saw the edges of Zsasz's mouth curl ever so slightly upward.


	11. Roses on parade, they follow you around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the distant rattle of keys that finally, properly brought Jim to wakefulness, his sleep-hazed mind vaguely registering the low, decisive click that heralded the pulling to of the front door. He blinked himself more fully alert, scanning the room even as he felt a low, sinking feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, this flaming train is climbing back on the rails, however briefly. There are several future scenes already sketched out, it is just a matter of bridging where this is meant to end up with where it is currently, without it being _too_ awfully choppy; bear with me. 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings for the events in s04e16: _A Dark Knight: One of My Three Soups_ implied. Title is a line from _Fuel to Fire_ by Agnes Obel.
> 
> As ever, comments are love, my sweets.

XI.  Roses on parade, they follow you around 

_Tell me now of the very souls that look alike, look alike_   
_Do you know the stranglehold covering their eyes?_   
_If I call on every soul in the land, on the moon_   
_Tell me if I'll ever know a blessing in disguise_

_The curse ruled from the underground down by the shore_  
 _And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before_  
 _And the curse ruled from the underground down by the shore_  
 _And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before_

\-- _The Curse_ , Agnes Obel 

\+ + + 

The close, static hum of a mobile phone receiving a text pulled Zsasz to wakefulness.  Amidst the detritus on the nightstand, the assassin's current burner blinked fitfully, announcing the receipt of a new message.  Reaching for it, mindful of both the hole in his side and the somnolent detective once again weighing down his shoulder, he keyed in the passcode and pulled up the most recent messages.  There were the usual check-ins on various ops from his girls, the ongoing tongue-in-cheek _house cleaning_ group kvext that he had admonished them for but not put a stop to, his earlier exchange with Xue Lin.  And the latest, from Tish, 

_T:  Massive breakout at Arkham._

Frowning, he typed back, 

_Z:  Define massive._

He absently trailed a finger along the back of Jim's hand, once more splayed protectively close to the edge of the bandage curved around Zsasz's ribs, waiting for a reply to come through.  His thoughts drifted to his own recent sojourn to the asylum with Headhunter, _hunting…_  He cut the memory off at the knees, mercifully distracted by the phone vibrating against his palm. 

_T:  Initial estimation in the dozens; working on getting more intel._

Jim stirred against him, breathing cadence shifting, his hand slipping lower to curl possessively just above the cut of Zsasz's hip.  Zsasz regarded it with amusement as he fired off a response, 

_Z:  Report back when you know more.  Good hunting._

_T:  Will do._

Setting the phone aside, he turned his attention to the detective sleepily nuzzling along Zsasz’s collarbone to press a prickly kiss at the base of his throat.  Zsasz shivered, feeling a sudden swell of inexplicable fondness which he promptly and mercilessly quashed.  _None of that_. 

He pressed his lips to Jim's forehead, soothing a hand through sleep-ruffled hair and along the detective's stubbled cheek to gently but firmly guide his head to the pillow even as Zsasz slipped smoothly from under him, needing to get _away_. 

Zsasz bent just enough to hook a hand through the strap of the small bag of essentials Xue Lin had brought by earlier with the groceries before he'd sent her off with instructions to pick up Jim's car, having spotted the keys to his Chevelle lying beside the empty ashtray near the centre of Jim's coffee table on his way to answer the door. 

He welcomed the flare of pain in his side for the clarity it brought as he evaded Jim's sleepy grasp and rose carefully from the bed, beating a strategic retreat to the 1950s pastel nightmare that was Jim's bathroom. 

He cut himself a withering glance in the bevel-edged mirror. 

_Get a fucking grip, Zsasz._

It was the distant rattle of keys that finally, properly brought Jim to wakefulness, his sleep-hazed mind vaguely registering the low, decisive click that heralded the pulling to of the front door.  He blinked himself more fully alert, scanning the room even as he felt a low, sinking feeling.  The space beside him had gone cold, the nightstand tidied, breakfast tray and Zsasz's personal effects conspicuously missing. 

He spied the torn off edge of a yellow legal pad placed on the nightstand in the space the assassin's mobile had previously occupied, and reached for it. 

_Jim—_   
_Had errands to run._   
_Don’t forget to eat something. You’re about to have a busy day._   
_Thanks for patching me up._   
_—Z_


	12. The final dying joke caught in our hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Anyone who wants to run knows where the door is.” Reassembling one of his GSRS, Zsasz checked the newly reloaded clip and slid it home, racking the slide to chamber a round. “Gotham’s home. She may be a bitch, but I’m not gonna leave her carcass to the bottom-feeders.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this part took a while... I was not entirely sure how I wanted to proceed despite having several future installments of this already roughed out; Zsasz is conspicuously absent for the last several episodes of the season, and everyone is so busy with all of the ginger twin drama and everything else that I was having a hard time deciding how to weave in and around around the framework of show canon. I hope this installment helps bridge the gap, at least, well enough that we can proceed merrily onward.
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of the song _Dorian_ by Agnes Obel. 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied.
> 
> Points for spotting the BSG 2003 reference. 
> 
> Comments are love.

XII.  The final dying joke caught in our hands  
_  
The crash of molars it sifts us downward_  
_Down past the roll of ancient thunder_  
_Down past the delicate bones of bird's wings_  
_Those that never took the flight of morning_  
_Down past the fossil ferns and antlers_  
_A pack of ghost wolves are going to bring you under_  
_Down past the stomachs filled with berries_  
_Swallowed down into the gut of centuries_

\-- _Buried in Teeth_ , Mariee Sioux

\+ + +

“V, you should see this.”

Zsasz looked up from the disassembled arsenal meticulously spread before him on the glass-topped coffee table, pausing with bore brush in hand to focus his gaze on the flatscreen and whatever had Lilija and Tish both sitting up from a comfortable downtime sprawl in their respective seats.  The latest issue of _Guns & Ammo _wilted like a glossy flower as it fell, forgotten, from its perch on Tish's knee to the carpet.  The small, rustling impact barely registered as Lilija, having halted her aimless channel-flipping on a local news station, cranked up the volume from its dim background hum, the better to hear the preposterously hairstyled but ruffled-looking talking heads on the screen as they cut between studio crew and on-scene.

Zsasz's lips thinned in professional disdain.  It was always _bombs_ with these clowns; so sloppy and impersonal.  “Lil, has Xue Lin called in from that recon in the Narrows?”

“Not as yet; I’ll reach out to her.”  Lilija was already halfway down the hall, shrugging shamelessly out of the peony-printed kimono in which she spent much of her downtime to trade it for her work attire.

“They’re calling for a citywide evac…?”  Tish divided her attention between the television and the phone in her hands, scrolling through any pertinent intel and firing off rapid texts to the girls under her immediate command before checking in with the other squad leaders.

“Anyone who wants to run knows where the door is.”  Sighting down one of his GSRS, Zsasz checked the newly reloaded clip and slid it home, racking the slide to chamber a round.   “Gotham’s home.  She may be a bitch, but I’m not gonna leave her carcass to the bottom-feeders.”  Zsasz reassembled his stripped-down arsenal as he spoke; freshly whetted blades tucked away, tenderly pampered GSRs back in their holsters.  His extensive array of bronze bore brushes, whetstones, and other sundry weapons-cleaning accoutrements were neatly returned to their respective places in their modest wooden chest.  

Zsasz turned his gaze to Lilija, who had reemerged clad in her customary leathers and was in the process of tucking a pair of sheathed needle-thin stilettos into the blood-auburn twists of her chaotic up-do.  “Lil, take Yana and Miette and secure the east perimeter; Bekah and Polina can take west.   And tell Chess I want eyes on the GCPD and the major players.” 

 _Whoever’s left, anyway_.

+

Zsasz was in the process of shrugging into his motorcycle jacket when he heard it, a low guttural roll like fast-moving thunder.  The flat, unmistakable roar of detonating explosives, and beneath it, the piercing shriek of collapsing steel.  He hooked an arm around Tish and pulled her back against the wall beside the couch as the earth quavered finely below them, reverberating lowly in his bones.  Lilija had fallen into a defensive crouch beside the armchair opposite, braced for further fallout.  None was forthcoming, everything suspended for a strange, breathless moment, underpinned by the faint banshee wail of distant sirens.

That is, until the low-level hum of electricity stuttered briefly, and the lights went, plunging the room into blackness.

“…There’s a power substation by the Sprang,” Zsasz mused, breaking the tense silence.  He pulled a small, combat-grade flashlight from a pocket in his vest to cut through the unfortunate side-effect of entertaining a healthy paranoia about windows, and offered Lilija a hand up.

“You think they hit the bridges?”  She dusted herself off, checking her weapons.

“It’d be the bold move if you wanted to cut the city off from the outside.”  Zsasz tilted his head, catching the distant, telltale hum of the compressor on the emergency generator he had had installed _just in case_ , right before the electrical systems guttered back to life.

“So what’s the play, V?”  Tish looked pale, but resolute.

Zsasz couldn’t really blame her; it’d been a busy week, with all the mayhem and laughing gas and clowns running amok.  Fucking clowns; Gotham used to be a nice, civilized town, run by criminals of principle.

“Recall anyone not on an active engagement.  Execute all imminent contracts and table anything second-tier for the time being.  Have everyone check in and redeploy to redistribute the armouries and emergency caches.  Secure the territory between the primary safehouses; if shit goes sideways, we may have to cauterize and relocate.”  A pity, really; the girls had put quite a few homey touches on the place.  “Everyone reports in at regular intervals.  Load for bear, and bring alt comms; cell coverage might be patchy.”

“You got it, boss.”  Tish had retrieved her phone, thankfully none the worse for wear, and sent a group text,

_T:  Pulling back to shore up defenses.   Tie off loose ends and come on home._

Meanwhile, Zsasz was firing off his own message to Sabine,

_Z:  XL not checked in yet; grab your guns and bring in the cat._


	13. Winter came and made it so all look alike, look alike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t know. It seems a bit…overkill, for Oswald--” Jim held up a hand to forestall Harvey’s imminent protest and _are you fucking serious_ face, “--unless he’s proving a _point_. A couple of low-level capos, hardly seems worth the effort. This seems…personal.” However chilled Jim found himself at the thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously heart Harvey. He tells it like it is.
> 
> I took a few liberties with the neighborhoods of Gotham, though I _did_ consult a few maps of the city; the show doesn't really give one much to go on as far as the proximity of the various locales to one another, as well as everything in between...if I have made any egregious errors, please tell me, and I will nip and tuck accordingly.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _The Curse_ by Agnes Obel.
> 
> Comments are love.

XIII.  Winter came and made it so all look alike, look alike

 _They won't know who we are_  
_So we both can pretend_  
_It's written on the mountains_  
_A line that never ends_  
  
_As the devil spoke we spilled out on the floor_  
_And the pieces broke and the people wanted more_  
_And the rugged wheel is turning another round_

\-- _Dorian_ , Agnes Obel

\+ + +

The door to Jim’s office swung inward without so much as a cursory knock.  He looked up from the terrifying albatross of paperwork that went hand in glove with his promotion to captain, made all the more daunting by being held up as fixed point in a city gone to shambles and attempting to maintain a sense of continuity and normalcy despite the temptation to seize the excuse of things falling apart to conveniently sidestep the bureaucratic side of it all.  A reprimand hovered on his lips, but Harvey was already talking.

“Morning, Jimbo.  How lies the weighty mantle of post-apocalyptic captaincy?”  Harvey was positively buzzing, setting a fresh mug of joe at the edge of his partner’s overflowing desk beside last night’s congealing dregs; Jim had been burning the midnight oil, _again_.

“Well enough,” Jim allowed, though he felt threadbare with the long days and even longer nights of maintaining both new responsibilities and his usual duties, heightened to fever pitch by the current state of the city.  He allowed himself a moment’s distraction to warm his hands around the mug, taking a grateful sip.  “Thanks.”

“You look like you could use it.”  Harvey breezed past Jim’s gratitude at the gesture in his usual easy way, as if it and a thousand other small kindnesses were utterly unworthy of remark.  “Just heard from one of my informants uptown; apparently Zsasz and his posse of trigger-happy stone cold foxes took half the Bowery last night.”

Jim sat up straighter and set aside his coffee, the stack of reports in front of him entirely forgotten.  “Come again?”

“I shit you not; everything east of Delilah Street.  Scuttlebutt has it they hit a bunch of the brothels in the Jezebel; the ones with the nastiest reputations.   The Pink Peony, the Boleyn.  Shalimar.  Made a real _example_.”

Jim could only begin imagine what form that _example_ had taken; Zsasz was nothing if not _creative_.  “Wasn’t that area taken over by one of Falcone’s old capos--”

Harvey beat him to it, still running a mile a minute.  “--Tommy Pisarello.  _Affectionately_ known as Tommy Thumbs.  Real charmer; emphasis on _was_.  Set up shop with a couple of other mid-level dirtbags in the Penguin’s old digs after Sofia’s takeover.”  The unspoken addendum, _Fish_ ’ _s place,_ hung audibly between them, heavy with old bones.  “And get this, after Zsasz and his charm school finished going medieval on the pimps, they handed the reins over to the girls.”

Jim’s eyebrows hiked upward, even as his eyes turned to the map of the city tacked to the wall behind his desk, bristling with colour-coded pins demarcating the ever-shifting territory lines.  With as low of a profile as he had kept since the death of Sofia, Zsasz had not even made the board, his loyalties and whereabouts unknown.  Sofia’s capos had of course capitalized on the power vacuum before her body was even cold, moving to carve out little slices of the pie for themselves, though a number of them had already been taken off the map by Penguin in his systematic reacquisition of territory and consolidation of power.  “Meaning--”

“Meaning Zsasz just carved himself out a little fiefdom of pissed off, grateful women.”  Harvey’s tone fell somewhere between disgust and admiration.  “You think he’s back working for Penguin, or…”

“I don’t know.  It seems a bit…overkill, for Oswald--” Jim held up a hand to forestall Harvey’s imminent protest and _are you fucking serious_ face, “--unless he’s proving a _point_.  A couple of low-level capos, hardly seems worth the effort.  This seems…personal.”  However chilled Jim found himself at the thought.

Harvey blanched.   “Now _there’s_ a thought to keep you warm at night; _Victor Zsasz_ running around Gotham, completely off-leash, hot-to-trot on his own mysterious, finger-snipping agenda.  Like this city ain’t got enough problems.”

 _Amen to that_ , Jim thought grimly, moving to the map to pull the mug shots tacked to the part of the Bowery in question, plucking the nondescript yellow pins that had delineated Pisarello’s territory.

His hand hovered above the box of disused pins, a moment’s hesitation, before moving to replace the yellow with red.


	14. My husband’s gone, they all say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t need to see me inside, Jim.” He let the detective off the hook, tucking the corner of his mouth up in a smile.
> 
> “And if he kills you?” At Zsasz’s pointed look, Jim amended, “Sorry, _tries_ to kill you.”
> 
>  _Better._ Zsasz’s smile stretched with bemusement. 
> 
> “You looking to try and _save_ me, detective?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely certain I am happy with this, but I have been nipping and snipping and looking at it sideways with narrowed eyes and judgy expressions, and it seems fairly okay, so... I am relinquishing control and putting it out there. The next installment is where we get some Oswald face-time, at long last, and should be festively wrapped for y'all under the non-denominational holiday tree upon the morrow. 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Lemonade_ by Nicole Dollanganger.
> 
> Comments will be polished to a shine and placed upon my mantle.

XIV.  My husband’s gone, they all say

 _Oh when you stumble every time you walk_  
_Oh when you stutter every time you talk, hey…_  
_Don't look back_  
_Don't look back_  
  
_Your legs are no longer but you walk just the same_  
_Your charm is a pleasure yet an ever changing cage_  
_It's like I walked into a dagger, took a step back_  
_You turned around and didn't look back, hey..._

\-- _Dagger_ , Emily Jane White

\+ + +

The Falcone mansion loomed before them, cutting a jagged swathe of negative space out of the feverish night sky.  Its familiar, elaborate architectural features were delineated only by the ruddy glow of intermittently spaced fire barrels and the distant, smoldering husk of an ancient Oldsmobile Cutlass, like the ominous kiss of torchlight upon a B-movie castle.  In the absence of the constant, subliminal hum of electricity, it was all so terribly quiet, save for the low crackling voices of the flames.

“You’re sure you want to do this.  Rumour has it he iced Gilzean, and no one has seen Tabitha Galavan in weeks.”  Jim’s expression was uncharacteristically grim, even in the limited light.

“Fairly certain she went crawling back to Barb, like always.  Those crazy gals should really just put a ring on it, already,” Zsasz deadpanned.  He leveled gazes with the muscle that had materialized on the top step, watching the man quail slightly at his approach despite having nearly twice the mass and a few inches on the assassin’s height to his advantage.  There were undoubtedly more of the same awaiting them inside; mob bosses were disappointingly of a type in their low-level hiring.  

“You don’t need to see me inside, Jim.”  He let the detective off the hook, tucking the corner of his mouth up in a smile.

“And if he kills you?”  At Zsasz’s pointed look, Jim amended, “Sorry _, tries_ to kill you.”

 _Better_.  Zsasz’s smile stretched with bemusement. 

“You looking to try and _save_ me, detective?”

+

 _“_ _Good evening, welcome to_ Zenobia _.  Jackets, blade_ _d_ _an_ _d_ _projectile weapons, bludgeoning implements, and explosives, if you please._ _”_ _The smiling girl behind the coat check counter looked scarcely old enough to be out after curfew, let alone be working_ here _of all places, but Jim reserved judgment for the time being and shrugged out of his trenchcoat, passing it over.  He hesitated over his service weapon, briefly locking gazes with the bouncer, a blonde amazon with_ zero bullshit tolerance _writ in the set of her tawny, striking features.  
_

_The tension in the room suddenly ratcheted from peaceable to eleven, Jim and the bouncer locked in a stalemate of arrested motion, hands hovering near their respective weapons.  The situation was defused by the timely interruption of a honey-over-concrete contralto interjecting with absolute authority, “Thank you, Masha.  As you were.”  
_

_Hand dropping warily to his side, Jim turned toward the source of the interruption, though he did not put his back entirely to the bouncer, either.  
_

_“_ _Captain Gordon, you’ve been expected.”_ _The speaker was a statuesque chocolate-skinned woman with close-cropped pink-streaked hair that Jim recognized from his early encounters with Zsasz.  She cut a regal figure in a floor-length leather cheongsam with intricate black on black embroidery, the black crystals in her dramatically massive earrings winking ominously in the ruddy glow of the room beyond the velvet curtain currently being held open by the petite, olive-skinned brunette singlehandedly cornering the market on black eyeliner, shoulder pads, and spiked metal studs behind her_ _._ _“_ _If you would follow me, please._ _”  
_

_Curiosity compelled Jim to follow.  The velvet drape fell to behind them, the painted and studded brunette falling in three paces back, keeping step as they passed into the club proper.  Jim glanced around, unsure why he found himself continually amazed by the transformations that could and had been worked upon this place; surely he should have become jaded to it by now.  
_

_Gone was the stylish blue-violet modernity that Oswald had laid over Fish Mooney’s crimson and gold Old World opulence, both supplanted by a sleek, razor-edged aesthetic in shades of black and smoke and chrome with sparing red accents dropped here and there like a blood trail.  There was the occasional decadent, antique touch that somehow managed to meld harmoniously with the overall minimalist aesthetic, and red backlighting reminiscent of the Penguin’s vibrant blue that lent an ominous edge to every polished surface; a small nod to each of the club’s previous incarnations and the current management’s_ worthy _predecessors.  
_

_Jim found himself being led down an unfamiliar corridor beside the stage, past the doors of changing rooms for the evening’s talent, to the innermost chambers that must once have been reserved for Fish, and later Oswald, themselves.  
_

_As they rounded a corner, he could dimly hear voices, that of a woman, or women, and the familiar, deeper timbre of Zsasz himself.  
_

_“You might want to hold onto something.”  
_

_“What are you—_ Jesus _, V, give a girl some warning—”  
_

_“I_ warned _you to hold onto something.”  Zsasz sounded as unruffled as ever, and faintly amused.  
_

_Glancing between the faces of his two escorts who remained as maddeningly inscrutable as their leader, Jim steeled himself,_ _suddenly dreading what he might walk into.  
_

_When they stepped into the office, Zsasz’s long fingers were hooked in the endless laces of a glossy leather corset, methodically working his way from top to bottom as he pulled each row neatly flush against the spine of a curvaceous beauty with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk, fiery curls spilling invitingly around her face from the intricate chaos of her up-do.  
_

_“Jim.”  Zsasz glanced up at his arrival, smiling in a way that made Jim’s chest hurt.  
_

+

Despite the fact that it was not uninhabited, stepping into the house was like crossing the threshold of a tomb.  Zsasz felt the spectres of the past thickening the air like dust motes as he moved through corridors he could have navigated blind, the smell of old wood and prestige as familiar and integral to the weft of his being as the marrow threading his bones.

In front of him, Jim maintained a tense, steely-jawed silence as they were led deep into the bowels of the great house, flanked by two slabs of nameless muscle .  It made sense for Jim have taken point, seeing as it was he who had arranged this impromptu _tête-a-tête_ , but still, it grated.

Zsasz had been mildly surprised that they had been summoned here, rather than City Hall where the little bird could use his lofty surroundings to do some class-A grandstanding, but he could see the workings behind it.  The potential psychological warfare inherent in the mansion, given how clearly Zsasz had admittedly tipped his hand in regards to the old man, would certainly appeal to the workings of that devious, mile-a-minute mind; the setting alone would give Oswald an advantage.

And besides…this wasn’t strictly _business_.


	15. And licks the frosting off the blade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You swallowed that _bitch's_ lies hook, line, and sinker. I would expect as much from _him_ ,” Penguin's eyes cut briefly to Jim, much to the detective’s chagrin and indignation, “but _you_?” He scoffed unattractively, tone dripping scorn and quiet fury to mask hurt. “I expected _better_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some Penguin. And the little bird is _cranky_. Probably from having to wait fourteen whole chapters for his screentime...
> 
> I have actually had the meat of this section written almost in its entirety since practically the beginning... I just had to piece it all together and figure out how to get us here. Officially tripping off the edge into the abyss of the future poly-powerplay-endgame rabbit hole, though we will likely be taking the scenic route to admire the foliage. Also, edging up to the murky waters of the pain and bloodplay portion of our creature feature (I am honestly more interested in exploring where Zsasz and the other characters' headspace is at than in writing smut, so you needn't go clutching your pearls _just_ yet, but there will be some risky content nonetheless, so...). If that is not to your taste, the warnings were on the tin, folks (on the bright side, there is still time to duck into the the next theatre over and catch the tail end of _The Littlest Elf_ , should you so choose). 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Chapel_ by Nicole Dollanganger.
> 
> Two posts in two days. Merry Christmas, y'all.
> 
> Comments are love.

XV.  And licks the frosting off the blade

 _So I'm notching my spine with thorns_  
_Pulled from your thumb_  
_Notching my spine with thorns_  
_Pulled from your thumb_  
_And I am swallowing my_  
_I'm swallowing my bees down_  
_I'm buckling my_  
_I'm buckling my knees up_  
_I'm eating my own hide to hide in my own skin_  
_I'm eating my own hide to hide in my own skin_  
_Till I am left a-hanging_  
_Upside down and draining_  
_Like skinned does a-dangling_  
_From a hunter's oak limb_  
_Like my sisters, those does, woven in red shrouds_  
_Wearing bare ribbons of tightly wrapped muscles_  
_And bearing the burden of being that gift from the forest_  
_That turns humans wooden when opened_

 _\--Bundles_ , Mariee Sioux

\+ + +

“You will _kneel_.”

Jim watched, discomfited by the strange blend of slow-coiling desire and irrational possessiveness that moved through him, as Zsasz sank gracefully to one knee, like a vassal before a tiny, immaculately dressed king, until the illusion was spoiled by the assassin's other knee making contact with the floor and it became something else entirely.

+

 _“I need a_ favour _, Jim.”_

 _“A_ _favour.”  Now_ where _had he heard_ that _before?  
_

_Jim's mouth twisted, bracing himself for the backlash as he drew a breath to protest, only to stop short as Zsasz steppe_ _d in close, so close that the long line of negative space standing between their bodies felt electrified, their lungs drawing upon the same air.  
_

_The assassin's eyes were as darkly compelling as the fathomless undercurrents of Charybdis, drawing Jim in despite the smudge of darkening blood on his cheek, the ominously pink-tinte_ _d_ _water in the basin on the side table.  Jim's gaze was drawn to the scars bared by tellingly rolled sleeves as Zsasz reached for him, his own hands circling Zsasz’s wrists then sliding smoothly upwards, remembering the graceful play of tendons beneath pale skin when Jim ha_ _d_ _first stepped into the office to fin_ _d_ _Zsasz lacing the buxom re_ _d_ _head braced against the desk into her corset with the casual ease of long practice._

+

“Come here.”

Drawn back to the present, Jim stared as Zsasz _crawled_ , seemingly uncaring of the spectacle, until he came to kneel once more just shy of the gleaming tips of the Penguin's oxfords.

Something in Jim _twisted_ , a frisson of unease or perhaps even longing, _envy_.  He watched Zsasz unholster his left sidearm, candlelight catching lowly on the sleek nickel plating as he reversed his grip on the weapon to offer it to Penguin like a knight offering up his sword.  

Dread coiled tight in Jim with the thwarted need to _act_ as Penguin took the lovingly maintained GSR, briefly contemplating its clean lines before he pressed the muzzle squarely to Zsasz's forehead.  The cocking of the hammer reverberated through Jim's bones, though Zsasz didn't as much as flinch.

The detective's mouth parted around a protest that was quelled by a single glance from furious green-blue eyes.

+

 _“You can get me an audience with him.  He...trusts you.”  Like he did me, once._ Before _._

_“It's--I'm not sure he's exactly thrilled with you right now.”_

_Quietly, “...Please, Jim.”  
_

+

How the hell he had managed to somehow get himself wrapped around a hired killer's little finger was anyone's guess, but Jim found it impossible to look away as the Penguin deliberated, eyes locked with his former enforcer's for long moments that wound the terrible anticipation between Jim's shoulders to snapping point.

Finally, the dethroned King of Gotham deftly uncocked the hammer, flicked the safety and lowered the weapon.  The ungloved hand not occupied with Zsasz's surrendered sidearm raised, the measured movement telegraphing violence.

Zsasz sat still as a stone, allowing the Penguin's backhand to snap his head to the side, leaving him with the faint taste of copper and a stinging mouth.  The second strike fell harder, the edge of a ring catching and splitting open the skin over Zsasz's cheekbone, near enough to his eye to elicit an icy thrill of warning alongside the low curl of satisfaction and slight unfurling of long-strung tension between his bones.

The Penguin's hand moved to cradle the injured side of Zsasz's face with deceptive gentleness.  His thumb pressed intently over the fresh wound, eliciting a sharply indrawn breath, then drew the slickly welling scarlet down the smooth plane of Zsasz's cheek to paint a bright slash across killer's swollen, smarting mouth.

“I _trusted_ you.”

The lowly spoken words made Zsasz flinch where the physical blows had not.

“And you _betrayed_ me.”

“I thought--”

“I know very well what you _thought_ , _Victor_.”

The assassin shied from the icy hiss of his given name as most would from a slap.

“You swallowed that _bitch's_ lies hook, line, and sinker.  I would expect as much from _him_ ,” Penguin's eyes cut briefly to Jim, much to the detective’s chagrin and indignation, “but _you?”_ He scoffed unattractively, tone dripping scorn and quiet fury to mask hurt.  “I expected _better_.”

Shame crept its icy-hot tendrils the length of Zsasz's spine even as he caged a retort behind his teeth; he was suddenly _Victor_ again, youthful and ungainly and being called to the carpet to own up to evoking his Don's displeasure for some transgression or another.  No disparagements or physical _corrections_ or raised voices, just the lingering sting of Don Falcone's quiet, evenhanded disappointment.

“Tell me how to make it up to you, Boss.”   _I can be better._  Zsasz pushed pride down past the irksome tightness in his throat, “Please.”

Was this how the Boss had felt when that bitch Nygma had him at the end of the pier, before the traitor put a round in his chest?   _You're a traitor now, too, Zsasz._

Penguin exerted pressure on the split in Zsasz's lip with an almost contemplative expression, taking in the minute tells as the assassin suppressed his body’s knee-jerk reaction to the touch and the sweet, small pain contrasting with the stinging palette of future bruises rising along the side of his face, the fiery throb of his steadily bleeding cheekbone.  “Find _Martin_ ,” Oswald finally whispered, the controlled veneer fractured by desperate longing.  “ _Bring_ him to me.”

“He’s _safe_ , Boss.”  The assassin's teeth ground as he fought to regulate his sudden shortness of breath, the hectic spots of delicate colour rising to contrast his funereal pallor and the bold smears of carmine on his skin.  “I swear it.”

Jim stood rooted in place with an uneasy flush creeping up his neck, feeling like an interloper but paralyzed by his own visceral, not entirely negative response to the tableau of cruel intimacy.

_Please, Jim._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I wonder if I am not just writing this to address all the loose ends and unanswered questions that keep nagging at me. Like, if the city has been bombed to hell and Ed is lying on a slab in Dr. Feelgood's basement-o-horrors, who is left to know the whereabouts of sweet murder-baby Martin??


	16. I'm a rusty nail, you're an iron maid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He still felt the twofold sting of Oswald’s words, hitting him like a slap but clearly laying Zsasz open to bone if the uncharacteristic flinch were any clear tell, though Jim could privately admit that they were, at least on his own part, not entirely undeserved.
> 
>  _I would expect as much from_ him _, but_ you _?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Boxing Day, lovelies. I will be abroad through January 6th, starting tomorrow, so I thought I would treat y'all to another update in the meantime in case I am entirely lazy and go radio silent for the duration. 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Dagger_ by Emily Jane White.
> 
> Comments are the kindling for the wee fire beside which I warm myself, and muchly appreciated.

XVI.  I'm a rusty nail, you're an iron maid

 _There is a house built out of stone_  
_Wooden floors, walls and window sills_  
_Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust_  
_This is a place where I don't feel alone_  
_This is a place where I feel at home_  
  
_And I built a home_  
_For you_  
_For me_  
  
_Until it disappeared_  
_From me_  
_From you_  
  
_And now, it's time to leave and turn to dust_

\-- _To Build A Home_ , The Cinematic Orchestra

\+ + +

_Tell me how to make it up to you, Boss.  Please._

Try as he might, Jim couldn’t banish the echo of the tight, desperate tone of Zsasz’s voice from ringing in his ears long after Jim had awkwardly recused himself, nor the awful, raw longing in Oswald’s reply.

Jim had known there were deep waters running between Zsasz and his former employer, had heard firsthand the shades of loss and affection in the assassin’s words as they unfolded the cages of their chests and spoke the unspeakable to the close, blue-painted hours.  Yet somehow Jim still had fooled himself into thinking he had been asked to facilitate the ordinary, a simple reconciliatory meet between two former criminal associates, before Zsasz had cleared the office of his corseted female cohorts and sank with slow grace to his knees. 

He still felt the twofold sting of Oswald’s words, hitting him like a slap but clearly laying Zsasz open to bone if the uncharacteristic flinch were any clear tell, though Jim could privately admit that they were, at least on his own part, not entirely undeserved.

 _I would expect as much from_ him _, but_ you _?  
_

Jim himself had played no mean part in the break between Oswald and his trusted enforcer, a thought which now caused him no small measure of guilt, knowing now how truly the misplaced betrayal had struck its mark, the unfeeling masks of two supposed monsters peeled back to reveal something deeply, painfully festering and entirely human.

He had been so single-minded in his pursuit of the Penguin that he had allowed himself to become willfully blind to the beautiful viper he had invited to the table.  And she _had_ been so very beautiful.

Jim thought of Sofia as he had wanted her to be, barefoot beside him with their ankles kissed by the surf, the blue horizon stretching as endlessly as all the world’s bright possibilities before them.  Then he thought of her as Zsasz had left her, a bloody princess amidst a viper’s nest of wires and medical tubing, laid to rest upon a bed of violence and roses.

The bed she had made for herself the moment she called in the hit on her father, with her father’s truest servant her sworn executioner.

The executioner Jim himself had consoled and taken to bed, the first of enough times for the detective to have begun to lose count, running together in a watercolour wash of stolen moments of shocking softness and tender violence. _  
_

_He’s safe, Boss.  I swear it._

It had been days since Jim had delivered Zsasz to Penguin’s judgment, and the underworld had since been chillingly quiet, as though drawing a deep breath before some impossible plunge.  Jim’s apartment had never felt so woefully empty, his bed cold but for the company of old ghosts.

_Find Martin.  Bring him to me._

Studying the pattern of cracks and ancient stains in his bedroom ceiling, Jim turned the encounter over and over in his mind, parsing each loose-hanging detail.  One in particular kept catching in the cogs, taunting him, as though there were something he was overlooking that would prove itself entirely obvious if only viewed from the right angle.

Who the hell was Martin?


	17. And I'm feeling like a villain, got a hunger inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim watched Zsasz lean casually against the edge of his desk, the long lines of his body and the coiled potential in the easy way in which he appropriated Jim's space causing the detective to briefly imagine bending him over it. 
> 
> Zsasz met his gaze squarely, eyebrow shifting slightly upward as though he could follow the bent of Jim's thoughts, though he remained otherwise impassive.
> 
> “Victor,” Jim said, feeling caught out as he stood there, gaze shifting between Zsasz and his partner. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems I am feeling generous, and prolific. Plus this is a wonderful distraction from the absolutely shitty drama that has been the word of the day this holiday season... Not that it hasn't also been beautiful and moving and full of love and family and stories and all of the things, but having a terminally ill relative at the very end of their lifespan sucks any way you slice it. Tell people you love them every day, as often as you can, because there comes a point where they will no longer be able to hear you.
> 
> Right, enough real life shit. None of y'all are here for that.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Monsters_ by Ruelle.

XVII.  And I'm feeling like a villain, got a hunger inside

 _Where have you all your good words gone?_  
_Where have all your stories gone?_  
_Where are all the pleasures from_  
_The timbre of your tongue?_  
_I dreamed I had a gift for_  
_Holding up the sky_  
_I dreamed I had a gift for_  
_Holding up your sky_  
_And I dreamed I had a way with_  
_Words of consolation_  
_Do you wish you were an honest man?_  
_Do you wish you were a better man?_  
_Where have all your good words gone?_  
_Where have all your mercies gone?_  
_Oh when did all your bones start to bend?_  
_Do you wish you were an honest man?_  
_Do you wish you were a better man?_

\-- _Where Have All Your Good Words Gone_ , Laura Gibson

\+ + +

“Jimbo!  You got a _visitor_.”  Harvey jerked a thumb over his shoulder, drawing in a much needed breath from his quick scoot across the bullpen and jog up the steps to Jim's office.  Jim looked up from adjusting territory lines on the map of the city pinned behind his desk, turning to follow the line of the gesture.

He felt his mouth suddenly run dry at the sight of Zsasz down below amidst the sea of desks, two of his striking leather-clad accomplices flanking him a few steps behind.  

Zsasz had foregone his usual austere blacks in favour of a motorcycle jacket in the darkest red imaginable.  The supple leather gleamed like old blood in the dusty sunlight filtering in from the GCPD's high windows and the supplemental glow of erratically placed emergency lanterns as Zsasz cut across the room towards them with the surety of a well-handled blade.

Zsasz scaled the short flight of steps with a lethal, minimalist grace that didn't fail to make Jim's pulse quicken, his women remaining at the bottom of the stairs and facing outward, eyes upon the bullpen.

Jim watched Zsasz lean casually against the edge of his desk, the long lines of his body and the coiled potential in the easy way in which he appropriated Jim's space causing the detective to briefly imagine bending him over it.  

Zsasz met his gaze squarely, eyebrow shifting slightly upward as though he could follow the bent of Jim's thoughts, though he remained otherwise impassive.

“Victor,” Jim said, feeling caught out as he stood there, gaze shifting between Zsasz and his partner.  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” 

“A few of your tin soldiers came into _Zenobia_ last night,” Zsasz opened conversationally, without preamble, “hurt two of the girls.”  His smooth tone was utterly at odds with the murder in his eyes.

Jim felt like he'd been dunked in a bucket of ice water, the slightest wisp of idle workplace fantasy forgotten.  His gut twisted as he entertained the many shades of meaning lurking behind the word _hurt_.  

Beside him, Harvey cursed up a technicolour blue streak, but subsided after unintentionally catching Zsasz's gaze, and was thankfully letting Jim do the talking, for once.  For now.  Taking what small blessings he had where he could find them, Jim steeled himself and asked carefully, like toeing his way onto a field laced with landmines, “Where are they now?”

“They've been dealt with.”  A peculiar weight behind the cool, inflectionless statement suggested that Zsasz had seen to the truth of it _personally_.  

Jim swallowed.   _Shit, fuck, and damn._  “Then why come here?”

Zsasz abandoned his easy pose, straightening to his full height and pinning Jim like a butterfly with the directness of his gaze.  “Professional courtesy, _Jim_.  To tell you to keep your _dogs_ from shitting on my lawn.”   _Or I'm going to grind them up and feed them to my own_. 

“Also, the Boss wanted me to give you this.”  Zsasz drew an envelope made of thick, expensive-looking violet paper from an inner pocket in his jacket, lips curling with bemusement as Harvey’s hand twitched toward his sidearm at the movement.  He held the envelope out to Jim, waiting ’til the detective had taken hold of it and letting his grip linger, briefly, as their gazes locked for a tense, electric moment before Zsasz let go.  “Might I suggest not standing him up.”  The unspoken _this time_ lingered between them like wisps of smoke from a long-extinguished fire.

It was only after Zsasz had seen himself out with a cheery two-fingered salute and a chillingly carefree smile, back turned to them like he hadn't a care in the world, that Bullock exploded, Jim's shoulders already tense with bracing himself for the fallout, the envelope with his name scrawled in a slanting, elegant hand across the front cradled between his hands as gingerly as live ordinance.


	18. So get the room with the heart shaped bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Green isn’t really your best colour, _detective_ ,” Zsasz admonished, stepping casually into the kitchen and starting the water for tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Heart Shaped Bed_ by Nicole Dollanganger.

XVIII.  So get the room with the heart shaped bed

_I'm wasted, losing time_   
_I'm a foolish, fragile spine_   
_I want all that is not mine_   
_I want him but we're not right_

_In the darkness I will meet my creators_   
_And they will all agree, that I'm a suffocator_

\-- _Smother,_ Daughter

\+ + +

“Sticking your dick in someone doesn't mean you have an _in_ , Jim,” Zsasz said, proving his point by climbing abruptly off of Jim's lap and leaving him woefully unfinished; swinging in the breeze, literally _and_ figuratively.  “Or a free pass.  You should be more polite.”

Jim reached out to try and curve a hand around Zsasz's hip before he stepped out of reach, only to have his fingers swatted away like an errant fly.  “Polite.  To Penguin.”  His tone could have scoured copper, met by an entirely unimpressed look as the assassin evaded Jim’s grasp with maddening ease.

To be fair, much of Jim’s disdain was self-directed; he had seen the unexpected invitation as an in to be exploited, only to be shocked at how quickly his own jealousy had flared at Victor's easy deference to the tiny kingpin, the fragile bridge of trust and even _warmth_ that had already begun to renew itself between them, despite everything. 

He had gone into the dinner with an agenda, intent upon taking the opportunity to grill Oswald with as much finesse as he could muster on those nagging little things he never seemed to be able to slip into conversations with Zsasz, feeling awkward about blurring the lines of their strange truce or finding himself sidetracked from thoughts of _talking_ entirely.  Instead, Jim had found himself on the back foot, flabbergasted at finding himself the recipient of both the rare boon of Oswald’s gratitude, and an unexpected olive branch in the form of a favour owed; an offer of _truce_ that had Jim’s thoughts turning in entirely inappropriate directions before he could stop himself.

“Green isn’t really your best colour, _detective_ ,” Zsasz admonished, stepping casually into the kitchen and starting the water for tea.

Jim was helpless to do anything but follow, drawn along in the assassin’s wake like a wheeled toy on a string.  He watched Zsasz move around his small kitchen, unabashedly nude and cool as you please, as though they hadn’t just been working their way toward a spectacular mutual orgasm only for Zsasz to jump the train at the last possible moment. 

Seeing Zsasz so easily occupy his space evoked a deep, possessive sort of satisfaction in Jim, the sensation uncoiling low in his gut like a waking cat.  He found himself chilled by the effortless domesticity of the moment; by how much he wanted to _keep_ it.  Nothing ever lasted, and he and Zsasz had been on stolen time from the start.

“I’ll try,” Jim grudgingly conceded.  “To be more _polite_.”

“Do you really _mean_ that, Jim,” Zsasz mused, casting a pointed glance down the line of Jim's body, gaze as tangible as a bladed caress.  “Or are you just paying lip service in the hopes that I’ll finish you off?”

Heat crept up the detective’s neck, unbidden.  Feeling caught out, Jim grated, “ _Really_.”

“Thanks, Jim,” Zsasz said brightly, turning back to set out a pair of Jim’s mismatched mugs for tea, then dug around the cupboards in search of the tin of Assam he’d left several impromptu sleepovers ago. 

“Top shelf,” Jim offered, admiring the play of muscle beneath the moderately scarred alabaster skin framing the delicate ridges of Zsasz’s spine.

Hmm-ing happily as he emerged with his prize, Zsasz pinched out a measure of leaves into each mug and queried conversationally, “…How long did you know about Sofia, really?  Were you still fucking her?” At Jim's scandalized look, “The Boss has a thing for information.”   _As you well know._  “And he always did keep an _eye_ on you, Jim.” 

 _Like he’s going to be keeping an eye on_ us _now, because_ someone _can’t keep his hands to himself._ At dinner _,_ Oswald had excused himself to take a call, and Jim had taken the fact that Zsasz was, in actuality, the only security in attendance to live dangerously and steal a kiss, or three.  They had been a perfectly respectful distance apart when the little bird returned, reseating himself with perfect apologies, but that glacial gaze had strayed to the enforcer’s collar more than once, and shifted keenly between the two of them enough times to be telling.

The fact that Oswald had politely insisted that Zsasz see the good detective _safely_ home was the clincher, leaving Zsasz jittery with the queer thrill of something halfway between the mile markers of anticipation and panic as the evening had wound itself to a close.  He’d felt the burning weight of blue-green eyes as he brushed off Jim’s token protests to the contrary and did precisely as instructed, flanking Jim’s modest sedan on his sleek Ducati 900 SS through the checkpoints of several rival territories without incident, waved through by virtue of reputation alone despite the absence of his usual cohort.  

Jim stepped close, drawing him back to the present, hands rising to grip bruises into the cut of Zsasz's hipbones, teeth closing briefly around the tender blade’s edge of the assassin’s jawline.  “Green’s not your best colour, either.”

Zsasz grinned despite himself, leaning back into the embrace and turning his head to return the favour in kind, leaving a matching mark on Jim’s jaw as he bit back, _hard_.  “Fair.”


	19. I don’t hate you for your steel-toed boots or your handcuffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I mean _come on_ , man, _Zsasz_? You want to preach to _me_ about _morally compromised_? If you wanted to get a little freaky, we could have wrangled you an invite to the _Foxglove_ \--”
> 
> “Harvey—” Jim tried to interject, but his partner was on a _roll_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because laughter is the best medicine, and because I love Harvey. As humiliating as this is for Jim, I am terribly fond of this chapter.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Mean_ by Nicole Dollanganger.

XIX.  I don’t hate you for your steel-toed boots or your handcuffs

 _And I'm sorry he thinks more of my soul_  
 _Than he does my diamonds 'cause_  
 _I'm no good, not even when I'm trying, trying_  
  
_I know if I was an angel_  
 _I'd be begging them to cut the wings off me_  
 _Just so I could be here with you, darling_  
 _And maybe that's crazy of me, but it's true_

\-- _Only Angels Have Wings_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“What the _hell_ were you _thinking_ , Jim??  I come over here and find you raw-dogging a fucking assassin on your goddamn kitchen counter?!”

“Um—” _If_ that’s _singeing your eyebrows, you should have caught the_ earlier _show._   Jim forcibly quashed the little voice that sounded unerringly like a certain assassin.  

“There are things I can never _unsee_ , Jim, and _that’s one of them_!”

“You could have _called_ —” _You could have knocked._   Jim watched his partner suck in a lungful of air, winding up for a tried and true Bullock tirade, and braced for impact.  He folded his arms across his bare chest, despite the tell of the gesture, wishing he had grabbed a shirt as well as the much-needed pair of pants from his bedroom floor before Harvey had recovered from the shock enough to truly start in on him.   Jim’s attention had been understandably derailed by Zsasz’s shamelessly nude walk of shame as he exited the apartment; clothes tucked under one arm and shoulder rig slung over the other, looking far too amused by the entire situation.   Now, facing Harvey without the aid of full armour, Jim regretted allowing himself the distraction. 

“I mean _come on,_ man, _Zsasz_?   _You_ want to preach to _me_ about _morally compromised_?  If you wanted to get a little freaky, we could have wrangled you an invite to the _Foxglove_ \--”

“Harvey—” Jim tried to interject, but his partner was on a _roll_.

“How the hell does that even _work,_ anyway? His _kinks_ have kinks; rumours circulating the underworld about his ‘basement’ are the stuff of skell boogeyman nightmares.  Fairly certain he doesn't even _need_ a Foxglove invitation, his name's just a permanent fixture on the guest list.  Probably signed in the _blood_ of the last chump who though he'd take a walk on the wild side and ended up strung up with Zsasz carving off bits of his junk to send in a mason jar to his granny.”

“ _Harvey_!!”  That was just a shade too far; Jim had never met Zsasz’s bubbe, but from the little he had heard, she was a nice, upstanding lady. 

“What?   _Come on_ , Jim, you're like...mister straight-laced moral indignation falling asleep wrapped in the American flag with a bible under your pillow in comparison.”

Jim bit his tongue, biting back a retort about the Zsasz who fit so neatly into his arms, or laughed quietly but not cruelly about the things Jim said in the strange blue hours before dawn, or returned Jim's morning kisses with such surprising sweetness.  Those things were his to keep, and none of Harvey's damned business. “ _Don't_ talk about him like that.”

“ _Seriously_? It's _Victor.  Zsasz_.   Hit for hire, Gotham's own answer to the Terminator, only the Deluxe Dungeonmaster Barbie edition?  The guy _shot_ you, Jim.  Tried to kill you on _multiple_ _occasions_.  Have you _forgotten_ that, or was what I saw his way of getting back into your _good gra-_ -”

Jim hadn't realized his intention to hit Harvey until his partner was already on the floor, cradling a future shiner and cussing up a blue streak.

 _Well, shit_.


	20. Setting fire to our insides for fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zsasz had always admired Oswald’s commitment to the long game, having little patience for such protracted schemes himself for all that he was not a half-bad strategist when it came to it, but sometimes the caveats of said schemes, like having to rub shoulders with the likes of smug, supercilious assholes like Fries and formerly, _Nygma_ , well…it grated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude. Mostly a bridge to get us where we need to go, and because irritating Zsasz is great fun. 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Youth_ by Daughter.

XX.  Setting fire to our insides for fun

_Rose and Neptune, in the blue moon_   
_All the darkness goes into you_   
_When we're lost in the Holy bedroom_   
_When I feel you inside but I still need you_

_I will always come to you_   
_When I'm weak and empty_   
_With my wedding night blues_   
_When I need you to fill me_   
_Like you do_

  _\--Uncle_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“You know, when he gives you orders, you get this _look_.  Like a zealot being quoted scripture and told to rain hellfire on the unbelievers.”

“He's the _Boss_.”  The silent _his words_ are _scripture_ hung briefly after it, followed by a selection from Zsasz's folio of unsettling smiles, and a smug, “and I enjoy my work.”

The other Victor regarded him with piercing eyes, locking gazes with Zsasz like a supernova setting fire to the edges of the void.  Zsasz found himself supremely irritated to be stuck working with this frozen dickhead again, but the Boss always did have a weakness for a _fine_ set of shoulders, and even Zsasz could admit that Fries did have that, if nothing else.  The little bird had been shoring up his defenses, rekindling old allegiances.  Or in some cases, wiping the competition off the board entirely.  

Zsasz had always admired Oswald’s commitment to the long game, having little patience for such protracted schemes himself for all that he was not a half-bad strategist when it came to it, but sometimes the caveats of said schemes, like having to rub shoulders with the likes of smug, supercilious assholes like Fries and formerly, _Nygma_ , well…it grated.

“ _Victor_!”

Both sets of eyes snapped from their stalemate to the dark-paneled door of the Penguin's, formerly Falcone's, home office, Fries looking bored whilst Zsasz schooled his expression back to his rote mask of blank attentiveness.  “Which one, Boss?” he queried politely.

“Both of you!”  The little bird's tone was thin with tangible impatience, even through the door.

Side-eyeing Fries briefly, Zsasz gestured the scientist ahead of him with mocking gentility, refusing to put the other man at his back.  In the past, they had mostly ignored one another, with the studied indifference of a pair of half-tame housecats. 

But that was then, when Fries had merely nodded at Zsasz disinterestedly in passing rather than eyeing the enforcer up like some bizarre cross between a choice _Foxglove_ tableau and a half-puzzled riddle with that Nygma-worthy smugness curling his lip, sharpening the scalpel-glint of his unnaturally bright eyes.  It made the skin between Zsasz's shoulder blades itch, like loose ends and open contracts.  Since jumping back in with the Boss it had been all _go_ -time, and between work, rebuilding his rapport with Oswald, keeping an eye on the girls, and stealing a few moments with Jim, he was feeling the strain. 

Before…everything, he would have simply gone down to the _Foxglove_ and blown off a little steam, but the Boss had eyes _everywhere_ , and things were so fragile yet.  Zsasz tried not to _do_ fragile, as a rule; it was just tempting fate to deliver a smug kick in the jewels, but things felt _different_ this time, _more_ , like maybe…  And there were things he just couldn’t _ask_ Jim for; what if he said _no_ , what if he _looked_ at him like...

Hooking a thumb in the strap of his shoulder rig to quell the instinct toward fingering the grips of his GSRs, he followed Fries inside and tugged the door neatly shut with his non-dominant hand, drawing a slow breath through his nose before turning to the Boss with his game face on.

Goddamn, but he needed to _unwind_.


	21. By this still hearth, among these barren crags

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A muscle ticced in Jim's jaw; he could tell his partner was fishing for something. Ever since Harvey had busted in on him and Victor, things had been...off. Awkward stares, stilted silences. Jim felt like he was being _studied_ , like an insect under a microscope; as if Harvey was looking for proof of the pod from whatever alien entity _must_ have personality snatched his partner for Jim to be tapping _that_ particular ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _[Ulysses](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses)_ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
> 
> Comments are love, y'all.

XXI.  By this still hearth, among these barren crags

 _I'm a rusty nail, you're an iron maid_  
_You closed the coffin on everything I've saved_  
_A red petal fallen, onto a concrete mass_  
_A dark memento, every time you pass, hey..._

 _Please, walk back to me_  
_Because three kings are all I see_

 _Red, White, fire in the night_  
_Where are you going, dressed so well?_  
_Blue, White, fire in the night_  
_Where are you going, dressed like hell?_

 _Please, walk back to me_  
_Cause, three kings are all I see_

\-- _Dagger_ , Emily Jane White

\+ + +

“So, uh--word on the street is a handful of Zsasz's ladyfriends just stormed one of the leather joints on the old strip.  Some pre-Falcone, blood in the foundation type dive; casual kinksters need not apply.”  Harvey was doing his best to sound casual, hip hitched against Jim's desk beside a stack of reports that looked fit to landslide if a tender breeze so much as glanced at it sideways, but his gaze was keen.  “Tore up the place, real bloodbath. Daddy'd be _proud_.”

A muscle ticced in Jim's jaw; he could tell his partner was fishing for something.  Ever since Harvey had busted in on him and Victor, things had been...off.  Awkward stares, stilted silences.  Jim felt like he was being _studied_ , like an insect under a microscope; as if Harvey was looking for proof of the pod from whatever alien entity _must_ have personality-snatched his partner for Jim to be tapping _that_ particular ass.

Resenting the insinuating tone, and feeling bruised that he had not heard word one let alone laid actual eyes--or hands--on Zsasz in days, he blessed Harvey with the finest politically vacant stare in his arsenal.  “... _And_?”

“ _And_ it wasn't just your run of the mill territory grab, or doling out busted kneecaps like party favours to keep the bottom feeders in line. Seems they were _looking_ for someone.”  Harvey's tone was heavy, his emphasis significant, at the same time his eyes were poking Jim full of holes, looking for tells, a chink in the armour.  Anything to suggest Jim was already in the know about whatever had gone down.

Impatiently, Jim cut to the chase.  There was a niggling pit of foreboding yawning to life in his stomach.  “Any _someone_ in particular, or were they just feeling lonely?” he quipped irritably, fighting the urge to rise to the challenge in his partner's gaze.

“No confirmation as yet,” Harvey hedged, in the tone of voice with which one might pronounce, upon finding an empty crime scene, _they haven't found a body_.  Watching the way Jim’s face fell, despite his best efforts to hide it, Harvey grudgingly relented.  “But from the general description, their _boss_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short, but it is another interlude-type bridge to the next, far more substantial chapter (which I am terribly excited about, because _Alfred_ ). Formatting this is a beast on my tiny phone (I did not want to tempt my dowager laptop into shitting the bed by dragging it halfway across the world), and the Wi-fi on this pirate ship is rather spotty, so getting this out there has been rather...interesting. You're welcome. 
> 
> The next installment is on deck, but will need to be gone through with a fine-toothed comb before posting, seeing as my formatting refuses to paste with the text when I pull it from the document... Not sure I should work on that _just_ now, as it is two in the morning here and my circadian rhythms are already shot all to hell by residual jetlag, but perhaps it will appear as a New Year's treat for you few, precious lovelies who are dutifully following along on this strange ride (or being dragged kicking and screaming over the edge into the fiery abyss; six of one, half a dozen of the other) when I tire of running my feet off in medieval villages (Heidelberg is our next stop; been wandering around like a proper eccentric in great-great-auntie Mary's heirloom mink and burning a hole in my spiffy new baby, the Canon Rebel T6i, taking ALL of the pictures).
> 
> Á bientôt!


	22. Asleep inside the cannon's mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Zsasz's dropped gaze, the butler clicked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. “Bad form, sunshine. You don't lay all your cards on the table, someone's liable to get hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. I wrote _this_. *preemptively dodges thrown items*
> 
> I hate to spoil anyone, but I also do not want to post anything that might be potentially triggering, so...warnings. This chapter does not contain anything _graphic_ , per se, but it does touch upon such risky topics as poor life choices, unhealthy coping mechanisms, undernegotiated consensual painplay, consensual bondage, failure to safeword due to unusually high pain tolerance, ceding control to potentially unsafe/unknown partners, that sort of stuff. I tried to tag accordingly, but wanted to give an extra heads up in the interest of keeping all cards on the table and everyone in a healthy headspace.
> 
> If this neither singes your eyebrows off, nor trips the switches on your safety panel, welcome to Slytherin. And enjoy.
> 
> All said, despite the caution tape, this chapter consists mainly of sassy British life advice over breakfast and a cuppa.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _You Will Be My Ain True Love_ by Alison Krauss.
> 
> Comments are love, as always.

XXI.  Asleep inside the cannon’s mouth

 _We are the reckless, we are the wild youth_  
_Chasing visions of our futures_  
_One day, we'll reveal the truth_  
_That one will die before he gets there_

 _And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones_  
_'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone_  
_We're setting fire to our insides for fun_  
_Collecting pictures from a flood that wrecked our home_  
_It was a flood that wrecked this home_

 _And you caused it_  
_And you caused it_  
_And you caused it_

\-- _Youth_ , Daughter

\+ + +

“You ought to have safeworded well before I found you,” Alfred tsk-ed, settling a cup of tea and a plate laden with a full English before the bleary-eyed assassin.

“I wasn't there yet,” Zsasz said distantly, pausing before pulling the cup of tea towards him, the fragrant steam perking him up a little as he blew briefly on the scalding liquid, and then took a sip. He winced inwardly as it came in contact with the damaged skin of his split lip, savouring the burn on his tongue and offering Alfred a wan approximation of his usual smile. “Thanks.”

Alfred took a measured sip of his own tea, setting the cup neatly back onto its saucer before venturing carefully, “And if they'd killed you? What then?” At Zsasz's telling silence, he pushed onward. “Did you not think anyone would be a mite concerned, and go out looking for you?” _Or that your cadre of terrifying young women would not have painted the streets red in retaliation?_

Chagrined, “Not really sure Jim would notice to be _concerned_ , per se. The Boss…” His hand raised to cut a vague _so-so_ gesture.

“Jim _Gordon_?” Alfred blinked twice, processing this latest revelation.

+

_“Hey, Daddy-o.” Zsasz grinned at Alfred with red teeth. “Come to take a turn?”_

_“Tempting as the offer might be, pet, going to have to take a pass just now.” Alfred’s mouth was tight with disapproval as he surveyed the state of the other man, eyeing the blood that was, well,_ everywhere _and the unpadded cuffs securing his wrists. “Christ, but you're a mess.”_

 _Zsasz watched Alfred fish around in the pockets of Zsasz’s erstwhile playmates, sprawled gracelessly on the concrete floor where they'd dropped after being summarily punched out by the Englishman, who for his part was none the worse for wear save for a popped seam in the shoulder of his jacket._ Bloody amateurs.

_He came up with the keys and set about freeing Zsasz's wrists, only to find himself saddled with an armful of solid, leanly muscled deadweight as the assassin slumped into his arms._

+

 _Oops_. Zsasz cringed at the slip. _Way off your game, Zsasz,_ stop _fucking talking._ And what the hell was he thinking, spilling his guts to a butler in some Antiques Roadshow kitchen over tea and crumpets. _A butler with a_ nasty _right hook_ , he conceded silently, gaze drifting over the surprisingly fit silver-haired man in his rolled shirtsleeves and prim, likely bespoke waistcoat with brief, unsubtle consideration.

“And has Gordon got any idea what he's getting into? Or this _boss_ , for that matter?” Alfred met Zsasz’s once-over with a pointed, not unappreciative glance of his own, though he did prefer his partners rather less the worse for wear, on principle. _None of that, pet. Tempting, but you're in rather a sticky enough pickle as it stands, and I’ve troubles aplenty without adding yours to the pot._

It had been such a long time since Alfred had taken the opportunity to _dance_ with anyone, let alone someone who could give and take in equal measure. And the younger man was certainly not without his own appeal, in spite of the fact that half his face looked like ten miles of hard-ridden road and the garish mapwork of cuts and bruises Alfred knew were hidden beneath that borrowed shirt, having tended to them himself. The crisp whiteness of the perfectly pressed oxford seemed dingy in comparison to the opaline paleness of undamaged skin.

At Zsasz's dropped gaze, the butler clicked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. “Bad form, sunshine. You don't lay all your cards on the table, someone's liable to get hurt.” _Or end up strung up in a grotty dungeon somewhere, with no intention of safewording._ Eyeing Zsasz narrowly, “‘Specially when you're playing for keeps, isn't that right?”

When pale cheeks lit with shame, he tsk-ed lightly. “Thought as much.” Glancing pointedly at the untouched plate, “Best tuck in. _Two_ men on the line, you’ll need to keep your strength up.”

Zsasz’s face hadn't felt so hot since the last time his Bubbe had pointedly bemoaned the lack of fat grandbabies for her to fuss over. He pulled the plate toward himself with all the dented dignity of a chastised child, and took a grudging bite, only to suddenly rediscover his appetite.

Alfred watched approvingly as Zsasz cleaned his plate, then briskly cleared the dish away and poured him a spot more tea.

“Thank you.” Zsasz looked up at him in gratitude, smiling more widely. Despite the inconvenience of his shopping list of injuries, he felt oddly refreshed; it was better than he had felt in days. “You're an awesome cook.”

Alfred’s dignity would not permit him to preen at the compliment, but it was a near thing.

They took the time to enjoy their respective cups of tea, drawing out the close, comfortable silence that had fallen over the kitchen. It was the closest thing to an actual _date_ Zsasz could recall experiencing, well...ever, really. It felt…strangely nice.

“Right. Best be getting you back to the city, then.”

Oddly disappointed, Zsasz pushed back from the table and made to clear his cup despite Alfred's protests to the contrary, setting it down beside the sink with care. “Hey, you didn't happen to find my weapons...?”

“You’ll have your armaments back once we've left the premises,” was Alfred's brisk reply. He waited for Zsasz to follow him into a modest mud room just off the kitchen, retrieving a thick black square of neatly folded leather that shook out into the familiar lines of Zsasz's moto jacket. “Managed to salvage this as well,” he said mildly, brooking no arguments about helping Zsasz into the garment before reaching for his own wool topcoat and retrieving a set of keys seemingly at random from a long line of hooks.

The contents of the garage were a gearhead’s wet dream. Zsasz brightened visibly as the butler flicked the switch on the long line of overhead lights, Alfred side-eyeing Zsasz's obvious appreciation with bemusement.

Zsasz couldn't entirely suppress the occasional reverent impulse to _touch_ , though he mostly kept his hands to himself, mindful of the painstakingly glossy wax-jobs that made all the pretty ladies gleam like black and chrome diamonds in the mixture of artificial overheads and dusty sunlight.

The drive back to the city passed mainly in silence. Zsasz directed Alfred to the parking lot of a diner situated near the overlap of the Bowery and the southernmost edge of what had been fondly known as Crime Alley, an old Irish-Italian neighborhood that had only just begun feeling the first encroaching tendrils of gentrification before everything went to hell in a Valeska-shaped handbasket.

Eyeing the surrounding environs dubiously, Alfred cut the engine and slanted a tart look at his passenger. “Fancy a milkshake, do we?”

Zsasz smirked back at him. “Usually.” He leaned over into Alfred's space despite the protestations of his many souvenirs of the previous evening, reaching brazenly between the man's knees to hook long fingers in the strap of his shoulder-rig, having spied it stashed neatly beneath the driver's side seat shortly upon entering the car.

Taking a moment to see that his GSRs were still precisely as he'd left them, Zsasz leaned back over to press a brief kiss to the corner of Alfred's mouth. Grinning impishly, he drew back, only to feel the butler's strong fingers curve behind his neck and draw him back in for a proper, entirely distracting kiss.

“Thanks for the _lift_ , Daddy-o,” Zsasz murmured breathlessly when they parted.

Alfred cleared his throat, smoothing his waistcoat as a matter of habit and shooing him out of the car with a rough, “Off with you then, _trouble_. And keep your nose out of mischief, willya?”

With a grin and wink, Zsasz slipped out the passenger's side door, throwing a last appropriately cheeky wave. Alfred marked his progress across the parking lot before he vanished around the side of the building.

The butler exhaled a slow breath and gripped the steering wheel briefly before reaching to twist the key in the ignition, entirely on autopilot as he threw the old girl into gear and turned for home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Alfred is totally the sort to spend his post-apocalyptic downtime in a grotty leather bar, right? Or perhaps he was just taking time out from tending to the injured Selina to do a bit of recon for Bruce on some dodgy characters before becoming... _distracted_. Either way, the man clearly has a chequered past, and seems unlikely to bat an eyelash at much. Perfect for wrangling a hot handful like Zsasz. Despite being unlikely to cross paths apart from rare instances like Alfred chaperoning Bruce's occasional slumming it in places of questionable repute like the Iceberg Lounge, I really do feel like those two would have _so_ much to talk about...
> 
> A tip of the hat to Limpet666, without whose fabulous [Alfred Pennyworth/Victor Zsasz ficlet collection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12171897/chapters/27627975) this chapter would not have taken the direction it did (and why I am also contemplating a choose your own adventure type companion/spinoff AU piece in which Zsasz is not so hung up on Jim and Os, and entertains a _different_ choice...). Because Alfred is _awesome_. And also a full-service, well-dressed, charmingly lethal house husband who will press your unmentionables and ply you with an impeccably cooked meal after a hard day in the basement. The ideal catch to bring home to Bubbe.
> 
> This chapter is dedicated all of you lovelies who are still dutifully riding along on this crazy train (or being dragged kicking and screaming over the edge into the fiery abyss; six of one; half a dozen of the other). Happy New Year, my sweets.


	23. Where all my layers can become reeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It _seems_ Martin has had a bit of a fright this evening, and is refusing to sleep unless _Victor_ comes to tuck him in personally.”  
>   
>  _Oswald's tone glowed with that razor brightness that suggested he would very much enjoy sticking a shiv in someone, but was restraining the impulse in deference to his tender audience._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Smother_ by Daughter.
> 
> Comments are love, my sweets.

XXII. Where all my layers can become reeds

 _Little girl, little girl, don't lie to me_  
_Tell me where did you sleep last night?_  
_In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines_  
_Will shiver the whole night through_

 _My daddy was a railroad man_  
_Killed a mile and a half from here_  
_His head was found in a driver's wheel_  
_His body was never found_

 _In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines_  
_Will shiver the whole night through_

\-- _In the Pines_ , Janel Drewis

\+ + +

“You are not going _anywhere_ until you let me cover that up some; you'll scare that poor child half to death.”

Rhett stared Zsasz down from the doorway, where she loomed with arms crossed beneath her ample assets like a diminuitive but curvaceous pillar of southern disapproval, still in her work leathers and shamelessly eavesdropping.

+

 _When Zsasz’s phone rang with the opening bars to_ The Hustle, _he grudgingly cracked open his eyes where he was stretched across the better part of the couch with his head in Tish's lap, the lowered volume on TCM's most recent Astaire-athon a pleasant background hum as her fingertips rubbed delicate circles over his temples._

_Those magic fingers left, much to his disappointment, only to reappear holding the offending device a few inches from his face, like taunting a dog with a particularly unappetizing biscuit. Fighting the urge to shut his eyes again and take cover in the folds of her blue brocade dressing gown, he took the phone from her and drew a breath. “Hey, Boss.”_

“Victor.”

 _Was that_ relief _in the little bird's voice? Or situation-normal pissiness? Maybe he was just tired; he_ had _been working some killer hours lately…_

“Would you care to tell me why a certain GCPD detective of our mutual acquaintance seems entirely convinced that you are being held to ransom in some lawless den of iniquity and about to turn up in little pieces in individually wrapped priority mail boxes, or something equally dire and preposterous?”

_Fuck._

_In his mildest tone, idly wishing Tish would start rubbing his temples again instead of giving him that_ look _, the same look she and the other girls had been giving him since he came home looking like, airquote,_ something the dog keeps under the porch, _endquote, “...Beats me, Boss.”_

 _He winced inwardly at the unfortunate phrasing; he could practically_ hear _Tish whetting the daggers in her stare._

“Really.”

 _Yeah,_ totally _not buying it._

+

Rhett had steered Zsasz unforgivingly into the feminine temple of the girls's makeshift powder room, where he had killed the occasional downtime marveling at the mysterious witchery of Vera setting her curls, or Lilija penciling in her redhead-pale brows and painting her lashes. 

She planted him mercilessly on the hot seat with a steely grip entirely at odds with her deceptively small stature, grousing that he was too goddamn tall to be craning her neck at, and briskly set to work.

+

Really.

 _Zsasz felt his shoulders tighten reflexively; it was a_ skill, _the sheer levels of acrimony Oswald Cobblepot was capable of injecting in a single word._

 _“Not really responsible for what Jim--Gordon thinks, Boss. You want me to set the record straight?”_ You want a shovel with that, Zsasz? You'll dig faster.

“That would be advisable.” _A pause, then, tightly,_ “Come to the house.”

_The house…?_

_Sitting up despite protests from his peanut gallery of healing cuts and bruises, Zsasz was suddenly,_ entirely _present. Lowly, “Is he_ there _?”_

“It _seems_ Martin has had a bit of a fright this evening, and is refusing to sleep unless _Victor_ comes to tuck him in personally.”

_Oswald's tone glowed with that razor brightness that suggested he would very much enjoy sticking a shiv in someone, but was restraining the impulse in deference to his tender audience._

_Double fuck._

_“On my way.”_

+

Cutting the engine on the Chevelle, Zsasz squared off with himself briefly in the rearview, having noted the drab GCPD-issue sedan parked haphazardly beside the Jag as he pulled in with a low, sinking feeling.

In hindsight, he was grateful that he had let Rhett strong-arm him despite the judgy eyes and running commentary; the end result was better than expected, despite having full faith in her abilities, though Zsasz doubted it would stand up to the full weight of the Boss's scrutiny. But at least he wouldn't be facing the music looking like _death on a cracker_ , so…

He stretched his neck with an audible little pop, pulled in a breath, and _settled_.

Everything was awesome.


	24. To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pinning the assassin with a brief, penetrating stare impressively reminiscent of his adoptive father's, Martin abandoned the well-loved rabbit with patchy velveteen fur that he was clutching in favour of throwing his small arms around Zsasz’s neck and clinging like a barnacle in small, striped pyjamas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how much of this I have churned out whilst on this trip. Holy hand grenades, Batman.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Ulysses_ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXIV. To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle

 _Out in the garden where we planted the seeds_  
_There is a tree as old as me_  
_Branches were sewn by the color of green_  
_Ground had arose and passed its knees_

 _By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top_  
_I climbed the tree to see the world_  
_When the gusts came around to blow me down_  
_Held on as tightly as you held onto me_  
_Held on as tightly as you held onto me_

\-- _To Build A Home_ , The Cinematic Orchestra

\+ + +

“ _Hey_ , buddy.” Zsasz crouched down to Martin's level as the boy ran immediately to him the moment Zsasz stepped into the firelit parlour, glad of the excuse to avoid eye contact with the room's other occupants. “Heard you were having some trouble sleeping.”

Pinning the assassin with a brief, penetrating stare impressively reminiscent of his adoptive father's, Martin abandoned the well-loved rabbit with patchy velveteen fur that he was clutching in favour of throwing his arms around Zsasz’s neck and clinging like a barnacle in small, striped pyjamas.

Zsasz hesitated momentarily before folding the boy in a careful hug. He was startled to feel wetness when Martin burrowed his face resolutely against his neck, smoothing a hand gently over the small, birdlike bones in his back. “Easy, kiddo,” he murmured, feeling at a loss. He wasn't exactly the first person anyone, besides Oswald, would think to entrust with their children, but the thought of this little guy hurting was like a hook behind his breastbone.

The girls were still loudly bemoaning Martin's absence; for a pack of hardassed bitches they had _loved_ having the excuse of a child to fuss over, taking the rare opportunity to let down their chaos spikes and victory curls and showing a surprisingly soft collective underbelly lurking beneath all that top-shelf artillery and custom leather when they had something small and cute to shamelessly spoil.

Drawing Martin more securely to him, Zsasz transferred his weight to one arm and retrieved the fallen rabbit with his free hand as he straightened, lifting the child easily as he turned his gaze finally to Jim and Oswald, who were both staring with a queer mixture of shock and other emotions more difficult to parse writ over their faces.

Zsasz glanced from the concern, and yes, _guilt_ , that dominated Jim’s expression, to the ever-complicated blend of shifting feeling in Oswald's eyes, the usual quicksilver pique and calculation at war with something…softer that Zsasz couldn't place. There were words clearly piling up behind their respective gazes; questions, accusations, a stringful of colourful vitriol perhaps, in the Boss's case, but neither of them spoke.

It was Zsasz who broke the silence and its brittle, lengthening tension, speaking not to them but to the boy still holding on to him as if for dear life, stuffed toy tucked absently into the crook of Zsasz's arm as he settled Martin's weight more securely against his hip. “You about ready for bed, then, pal?”

The mop of brown curls against his cheek shifted as Martin loosened his deathgrip enough to regard Zsasz with teary yet slightly less wild eyes, responding to the question with a small nod. His eyes tracked intently over the assassin's face, tiny brows drawing together as he studied Zsasz's pale features with a solemnity beyond his years.

“Good, ‘cause this rabbit looks pretty beat, and we wouldn't want to keep him up past his bedtime, right?”

Thankfully the swelling had gone down, but the split in Zsasz's lip was slightly harder to conceal, despite Rhett’s bang-up job in minimizing the effect by toning down the surrounding palette of purple-red bruising. Martine's sharp gaze fixed intently upon it, the boy's hand rising to hesitantly hover over the small hurt as he pinned Zsasz with the full force of his huge, sad, guilt-inducing eyes. _Gimme a break, kid._

“I'm okay, babe. Just like Pol and Sabine after practice, remember? We've all gotta take a smack in the mouth every now and again.”

Zsasz's attention was caught by a small sound, gaze drawn to their audience like iron filings to a magnet, but he quickly retreated from Jim's stricken expression, Oswald's too-keen spark of revelation.

The hallway to the room Oswald had claimed for Martin was thick with old ghosts; Zsasz shook them off as he passed, focused on the small arms circling his neck, the smell of strawberry jam and clean sweat in the snare of childish curls tickling his cheek.

Thankfully the boy had ended up in Sofia's childhood bedroom, the shut door to Mario's room looming in candlelit shadow further down the corridor at the edge of Zsasz’s periphery as he turned into the fanciful, airy suite with its lustrous blonde woods and pale green brocade; a time capsule to a mafia princess.

The stately four-poster bed had been redressed in the darker jewel tones Oswald favoured, and the few toys and books scattered here and there, as well as small towers of tiny notepads and clusters of markers and half-sharpened pencils clustered beside the storm lantern on the bedside table, evidenced the living child who had taken up residence in this shrine to Falcone's long-exiled daughter.

Zsasz drew back the bedclothes and set his charge down amidst tastefully pinstriped, high thread-count sheets, gently disentangling Martin's arms from his neck so he could pull the covers up to his chin, tucking the stuffed rabbit in beside him.

“You need anything? Glass of water, midnight snack?” Accepting the tome Martin retrieved from the bedside and pressed insistently at him, he added, dubiously, “a bedtime story; okay.” Zsasz reluctantly acceded to the small hands that tugged at his sleeve 'til he perched on the side of the bed, cautioning, “It’s not going to be as good as when Sabine and Rhett do it, with the voices. Spoiler alert.”

Martine just stared expectantly at him ‘til he cracked the spine of the old book, cleared his throat, and picked up the story on the page indicated by a sterling bookmark engraved with Oswald's trademark umbrella.

“‘Chapter six: The Cowardly Lion. All this time Dorothy and her companions had been walking through the thick woods. The road was still paved with yellow brick, but these were much covered by dried branches and dead leaves from the trees…’”


	25. All my limbs can become trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not one to check the teeth on the gift horse that was a restfully sleeping nine-year-old, Zsasz carefully shut the book and set it aside, resisting the inexplicable urge to smooth the tangle of curls from Martin's closed eyes, instead studying the boy's face, slack with the absence of cares, the curious little fans his lashes made above the childish curve of his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, we might be getting _somewhere_.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Smother_ by Daughter.
> 
> Comments are love, as always.

XXV. All my limbs can become trees

 _Lay me down on a heart shaped bed_  
_Pretend it’s our wedding, pretend we just met_  
_Pretend we’re in one of those movies_  
_They rent in the back of every seedy place_  
_We pass on the interstate_

 _The signs say "Heaven waits_  
_On the other side"_

 _Just hold me through these lonely nights_  
_We’ll have a blue wedding tonight_  
_Hold me through these lonely nights_  
_We’ll have a blue wedding tonight_

\-- _Heart Shaped Bed_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“...‘ _You people with hearts_ , he said, _have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much._ ’” The chapter wound to a close, and Zsasz chanced a look at his formerly rapt little audience.

Thankfully, Martin had given up his tooth-and-nail grip on wakefulness and succumbed to the lure of sleep at last. _Way to hold out like a champ, kid._

Not one to check the teeth on the gift horse that was a restfully sleeping nine-year-old, Zsasz carefully shut the book and set it aside, resisting the inexplicable urge to smooth the tangle of curls from Martin's closed eyes, instead studying the boy's face, slack with the absence of cares, the curious little fans his lashes made above the childish curve of his cheeks.

Smoothing the edge of the covers and tucking Martin in more securely like he'd seen Tish do, Zsasz rose carefully from the edge of the bed and turned to make his exit, only to stop short upon stepping to the threshold and finding Oswald and Jim lurking in the corridor opposite one another in some kind of mutual stalemate, dropping eaves like a pair of creeps.

He brushed past them, ignoring the oddly soft expression on the Boss's face and the positively poleaxed look on Jim's as he put some much-needed distance between himself and Martin's room, the unlikely pair drawn in his wake like a couple of dropped puppies.

Ducking back into the parlour, Zsasz situated himself against a corner wall with a door-facing vantage and cut right to it. “Anyone wanna tell me what freaked the kid out so bad he wanted _me_ to tuck him in instead of his _dad_ \--?”

Chagrined, Jim stepped forward, only to stop dead at the look Zsasz pinned him with. Drawbridges up and _trous-des-loups_ spikes freshly sharpened, check. “He came into the room when I was--”

“--ranting about _Victor_ being _dead in a ditch_ somewhere?” Oswald interjected cuttingly. “After waking up from a _nightmare_ about God knows _what_ \--”

Zsasz shot the Boss a quelling look, glancing back to Jim and tabling the spike of protectiveness Oswald's words evoked. The little bird would have time enough to vent his spleen; getting real _words_ out of Jim was like playing dentist with a particularly wily hen.

...Yeah. That.” Jim had a look on his face like the aftermath of a lemon; sour and regretful that he'd gone and bitten down on it, despite all better judgment. “I didn't even know he was in the _house_ \--”

“He's _my son_ ; where the hell _else_ would he be?”

“I didn't _know_ you had a _son_ ,” Jim ground out, feeling cornered. He _hated_ being in the wrong, and liked even less to be called out on it, though to be fair, Oswald always did have a way of making him feel and act particularly mulish, regardless of who held the higher ground. And seeing Victor, the shockingly easy, gentle rapport he had with the child, made Jim's gut wrench with the memory of everything he might have had with _Lee_ , in another lifetime. If he hadn't...if she didn't… _if..._ Pushing the past back into its drab little footlocker where it belonged, “Wait, is _he_ the boy from--”

“If that’s _all_ , Boss,” Zsasz interjected, tone as opaque as a sphinx as he glanced between the pair like a bystander at a bar brawl, feeling discomfitingly third wheel-ish and not liking the track Jim's thoughts had taken, “I’ll just go--”

“ _Wait_ \--”

“ _You_ are not going _anywhere_ until you tell me where you've been for the past _three days_ and why _he_ barged in here and terrified Martin half to _death_ \--”

An angry flush had crept up Jim's neck, unfurling slow flags of colour in his cheeks.  "I said I was _sor_ \--"

“You did _not_! You _did_ not _apologize_. You just kept _defending_ yourself and going on about your _preposterous_ \--” The colour was high in Oswald's face as well, the shrillness of his voice increasing in kind.

“It _wasn't_ preposterous, _Oswald_ ; there are _six bodies_ \--”

“You guys don't _really_ need me here for your marital dispute, right?” Zsasz cut in blandly, bored of the drama but regretting the decision to dip his toe in shark-infested waters when both sets of anger-bright eyes turned toward him in shock.

“ _What_ \--” Jim had gone completely red, caught on the backfoot but unsure why exactly that _was_ , when the very notion was so ridiculous...

“We are _not_ having a--a _marital dispute_!” Oswald's voice had jumped octaves, indignation kicking it straight to full-tilt diva levels.

“Sure sounds like one.” _Way to go, Zsasz; don't just dip your toe in, cut it_ off _and toss it in like an_ amuse bouche _before dangling your maimed and bleeding foot off the dock within snapping distance._

“Where the _hell_ _were_ you?”

“Taking a personal day. _Days_ ,” Zsasz amended. A quick, irrational spike of guilt had him on the defensive. “I stacked the rota to more than make up for my absence--”

“‘ _Personal days_.’” The infinitely complicated gears in that sleekly coiffed head were clearly turning.

“I still do get to take _those_ on occasion…?” Why the hell couldn't the little bird stop _looking_ at him like that, already? “Unless that's part of my punishment.”

That bright, glacial gaze narrowed, Oswald's head tilting consideringly. “Punishment for what?”

“You _know_.” When the Boss wouldn't budge, like the stubborn, tenacious bitch he was, just fixing Zsasz in place with those _eyes_ , “Betraying you.”

“...Victor, do you _want_ to be punished?”


	26. He hit me, and it felt like a kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prospect of having so fearless and dangerous a thing as _Victor Zsasz_ bend neck to his hand and place himself willingly within the admittedly capricious kingpin's power was a heady one. And oddly...humbling, to have placed within his hands such _trust_ , after everything, when so many others had spurned every outstretched hand or generous overture Oswald had ever extended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Transatlantic flights prove a great setting for burning through all my phone battery churning out/editing this behemoth (how the hell have I posted 20k+ words already?? _Zounds_ )... 
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)_ covered by Nicole Dollanganger.
> 
> Comments are love, as always.

XXV. He hit me, and it felt like a kiss

 _Holding flames, holding hands and hearts,_  
_And their bindings held tightly_  
_Lyin' in the shady grass, their teeth grinding,_  
_Insight is foreign_

 _Cause it's the magic hand that holds you gently,_  
_And turns one into man_  
_And their insight is bloody, to reach boldly,_  
_For truth spoken from mouth in his name_

\-- _Wild Tigers I Have Known_ , Emily Jane White

\+ + +

“So you crave...subjugation?” Ensconced in the thronelike chair nearest to the fire-- _far_ more ostentatiously upholstered than anything the Don would have chosen; the little bird had been _busy_ \--the Penguin's gaze was narrowly assessing as he studied the meticulously blank facade of his chief enforcer.

Both the directness of the question and being the recipient of the full measure of such rapt focus, cutting-keen as his favourite flaying knife, incited the sudden, immense urge to fidget, but Zsasz shut that shit down immediately, remaining utterly still in his deliberate slouch in the chair opposite.

At Oswald's insistence, they had settled themselves into the parlour's fireside sitting area, Zsasz relinquishing the comfort of having the corner to his back in deference to the awkward set of Oswald's shoulders, the fine telltales of pain creasing the edges of green-blue eyes despite his best efforts to mask it as he shifted his weight between his good and bad leg and tried to maintain as much high ground as his height could afford him.

It was the same parlour where Oswald had fallen on his knees before Falcone, looking beat all to hell before Zsasz could even get to work on him, and spilled what he knew about Fish's coup, taking a backhand for his trouble but pressing on insistently with the truth of Liza’s duplicity, regardless of the Don's indignation and the blood dripping from his mouth. It had impressed Zsasz even then; that razor-focus, that tenacity, even in the face of the sheer gravitas and magnetism of a man like Carmine. Meanwhile Zsasz had prowled and loomed restlessly behind his Don's chair, every sense cued to the slightest tell that he was being let off the leash, that he was _needed_.

That had been a good night; he'd upped his tally by several marks taking out Fish's crew, _and_ gotten to watch his Don crush the life from Liza's petal-pink throat. He'd seen the light go out of her treacherous, too-pretty eyes, and as though the vitality had flowed between them like a circuit, suddenly Falcone was _himself_ again. Not the fatigued, lovetwisted, formerly-great that Fish and her _games_ had tried to make of him, but the man that Zsasz would gladly have followed into the fires of hell, unarmed and drenched in gasoline.

Zsasz's gaze flitted furtively to Jim, then down to study the play of firelight across the polished dark surface of the coffee table briefly, before lifting to square with Oswald's. “Sometimes.”

The way Zsasz met his eyes, the plainfaced simplicity of his answer, despite the added coldwar tension of Jim and his obviously growing discomfort stiffly occupying the furthermost violet-blue brocade armchair like a ‘peacekeeping’ detail in a third-world nation a few feet away, sent a thrill through Oswald. The prospect of having so fearless and dangerous a thing as _Victor Zsasz_ bend neck to his hand and place himself willingly within the admittedly capricious kingpin's power was a heady one. And oddly...humbling, to have placed within his hands such _trust_ , after everything, when so many others had spurned every outstretched hand or generous overture Oswald had ever extended.

“Come _here_.” His voice was entirely different from the last time he had commanded Zsasz to do the same, couched in deceptive softness that made it seem almost more request than order.

Almost.

Drawn forward by the surefire lure of that crisp, softspoken authority despite himself, Zsasz straightened and shifted to the edge of his seat, ‘til he was just within the circle of Penguin’s reach.

Oswald reached without preamble and dragged his pocket handkerchief down the side of Zsasz's face, noting his minute, pained tells and the catalogue of violence the immaculately applied concealer and foundation revealed as it came away on the starched white of the gauzy, intricately embroidered linen.

Dropping the soiled handkerchief to the table, he raised a tentative hand to the livid tapestry of bruising that spilled like overturned wine on a linen tablecloth across Zsasz's left cheek and jawline. He was pleased when Zsasz turned into the cradle of his palm as easily as ever, though he kept the touch deliberately light.

Watching his enforcer's face intently, Oswald ghosted his thumb over the line of Zsasz's cheekbone before pressing down. He was rewarded by the quiet catch of breath in Zsasz's throat, the fluttering shut of his eyes.

“And pain?” Oswald studied the blue tracery of veins beneath the delicate skin of Zsasz's eyelids, translucent as antique porcelain. He couldn't fault them for avoiding striking at his eyes, at least, the liquid dark intensity of them as direct as a well-placed blade. _The better to see you with, my dear._

“Yes.”

“What else?”

In the ensuing silence, Oswald considered the sudden return of Zsasz's formerly lessened tension, eyes flickering open to dart another quick, fraught glance toward Jim, answer enough.

Carefully, “Would it be beneficial to...create a list?”

“ _Yes_.” Oswald's hand had drifted lower, loosely curving around the smooth column of Zsasz’s throat, feeling the delicate action of the muscles and tendons as Zsasz swallowed reflexively beneath the cast net of his fingers. “ _Please_ , Boss.”

The quiet immediacy of Zsasz's answer, relief loosening the sharpness of his meticulously blank expression, had Oswald suddenly second-guessing himself. How long had Zsasz been so silently, patiently waiting for him to _catch up_ enough to have this conversation?

Meanwhile, Jim was glancing between them, feeling once again like an interloper and second-guessing himself for entirely different reasons.


	27. And with all of the love that your mouth has rushed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The detective stared dully around his dank little apartment, despising its emptiness more than he could ever recall having done so before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This travel plague is handing me my ass, darlings (but apparently not enough to keep peeling strips off this wild beast of a yarn for y'all to enjoy).
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Bundles_ by Mariee Sioux.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXVII.  And with all of the love that your mouth has rushed

_Swaying like the children_   
_Singled out for praise_   
_The inside out on the open_   
_With the straightest face_

_As the sad-eyed woman spoke we missed our chance_   
_The final dying joke caught in our hands_   
_And the rugged wheel is turning another round_

\-- _Dorian_ , Agnes Obel

\+ + +

Jim bailed not long after. He'd used the excuse of his ringing phone and duty calling, but Zsasz, and surely Oswald, must have seen the obviousness of his withdrawal from the situation.

The detective stared dully around his dank little apartment, despising its emptiness more than he could ever recall having done so before.

The assassin's ghost was everywhere, smirking, drinking tea, making a mess of the kitchen, laughing in that low, understatedly genuine way he had. Reaching for Jim with those endlessly deep eyes and open hands, pulling him close, _closer_...

He couldn't bear the way it was all overlaid with questioning now; a wondering if he wasn't _quite_ doing enough, wasn't _satisfying_ something deep in Victor that had him going out to some unknown _place_ and asking from strangers what he clearly couldn't bear to ask from his _lover_.

He thought back over the times they had had together, the way Zsasz eagerly met any roughness Jim had seen fit to dish out, how he relished the tender-sharp turnabout of giving and receiving marks and bites and bruises with particular fervour--perhaps _receiving_ them a bit more, in hindsight--but also savoured the tender, still moments with a kind of quiet, newshaped awe that spoke to an unfamiliarity with ever having been handled like anything more than a convenient means to a mutually satisfactory end…

Zsasz had met those unexpectedly soft moments with such startled, almost _shy_ pleasure that Jim couldn't bring himself to believe it was anything other than genuine, despite the solid dint to his ego that even after months of coming together, time and again, it seemed he had only just begun to scratch the surface of the enigmatic, multifaceted killer he had somehow, by some half-cocked contrivance of misaligned stars, managed to fall into bed with.

And continued to _fall_ , hitting every branch on the way down.


	28. But no one, nothing at all would go for the kill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald's mouth twisted at the hollow, matter-of-fact tone. As easy as that, like bartering a blowjob for a pack of cigarettes. “Just like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _The Curse_ by Agnes Obel.
> 
> Comments are shiny.

XXVIII. But no one, nothing at all would go for the kill

 _Shadows settle on the place that you left_  
_Our minds are troubled by the emptiness_  
_Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time_  
_From the perfect start to the finish line_

 _And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones_  
_'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs_  
_Setting fire to our insides for fun_  
_Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong_  
_The lovers that went wrong_

\-- _Youth_ , Daughter

\+ + +

When Jim left, Zsasz drew in on himself like kicked dog, the overwound tension in his spine a clear tell despite the careful emptiness of his professionally smooth, attentive expression.

At least, in Jim's absence, Oswald could truly speak his mind. “Tell me what happened to your _face_ , Victor.”

“I...needed to unwind.”

At Oswald's pointed glance, that said there was no way in the nine frozen and flaming hells that he would accept just _that_ , Zsasz expanded upon his vague statement. “So I went someplace I knew they wouldn't ask questions, or...report back to _you_ , and found some guys. Then I...made a trade. Something they wanted, for something I wanted.”

Oswald's mouth twisted at the hollow, matter-of-fact tone. As easy as that, like bartering a blowjob for a pack of cigarettes. “Just like that.”

“Mm-hmm.” Zsasz regarded him steadily for long moments, holding his gaze in a way few would have dared, before glancing down in concession. “‘Til a concerned patron came in, kicked the snot out of everyone involved, and gave me a stern talking to on ‘ _good_ and _bad_ BDSM etiquette.’”

“And?”

“And nothing, _Boss_ ; here I am.”

 _Uh-huh._ “Remove your shirt.”

Zsasz blinked at the abrupt shift in gears, caught off-balance and masking it with an approximation of his usual glibness.  "You sure we’re not moving a bit _fast_ , Boss; we've only just--”

“ _Now_.”

“Sir.” Zsasz complied, hating the desperate ease with which the title rolled off his tongue; how much he wanted it to be _true_.

Oswald said nothing, merely taking in the garish topography of bruises and lacerations that comprised Zsasz's torso when he gingerly removed his shoulder-rig, jacket, and shirt, dawdling over the buttons on the latter until the kingpin's sharpening glare silently told him to _hurry it the fuck_ along _, already_.

 _I guess the romance is dead_ , Zsasz thought drily as he shrugged out of the offending garment and let it fall carelessly to the carpet, refusing to give creedence to the impending flush of shame at seeking relief in the bland, impersonal cruelty of strangers when it wasn't them but the man scrutinising him with such clinical intensity that he truly longed to have scratching _that_ particular itch.

“You will _not_ do this again.” Oswald's grim, unforgiving tone held no room for argument. “Is that quite understood.”

“...Yes, Boss.” _Yes_ , Sir.

“Good. Now get dressed, and get out. I need time to think.”

Stung, “ _Boss_.”


	29. And please take with you, this piece of fragile gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It's something I've had for a while,” the Penguin said, as though it were nothing at all and Zsasz's response were immaterial; a trifle to reward a faithful servant, though Zsasz had been anything _but_ , “but with...everything, it just--the timing never seemed right.” The diminutive kingpin was suddenly rambling, pushing futilely back against the weighty silence as his enforcer stared mutely at the box's contents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We _will_ get back to Jim, I promise. He did get to be the full focus of Z's attention for the first fourteen or so chapters, so the little bird is making up for lost time, and _greedy_.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied (I have not gotten to catch up on any of season 5, as yet; not sure if it will be even within the realm of compliant, but I may well cherry-pick some cookies to incorporate, when I get there). Chapter title taken from a line of _The Wolves_ by Emily Jane White.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXIX. And please take with you, this piece of fragile gold

 _In the backyard full of dying flowers_  
_In the kitchen on the pale pink counter_  
_Give you a lap dance outside in a lawn chair_  
_Drinking lemonade and playing with my hair_

 _I've been home all day_  
_My husband's gone, don't need to worry_  
_Take you upstairs to the swan bed_  
_Let you fuck me hard as you can_  
_The next time he kisses me_  
_Want him to taste red ruby lips_  
_And the love we made_  
_And the lemonade_  
_So come on over and give it to me_

 _\--Lemonade_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“There's something for you on the table,” Oswald said, eyes not lifting from his Everest of ledgers to be cooked, bills to be paid, debts to be collected, contracts, daily reports, and other sundry papers yet to be pushed. The _true_ frills and glamours of being the kingpin of an ever-expanding criminal empire.

Zsasz took a moment to silently assess the Boss, enthroned behind the pompously antique monstrosity of an intimidation tactic he called a desk, before turning his keen gaze upon the polished ebony box sitting unassumingly atop a nearby decorative end-table with spindly legs not built to withstand the weight of anything more substantial than a flower arrangement.

Compelled closer by pure curiosity, Zsasz flipped up the lid and stopped abruptly short. “ _Boss_ ,” he breathed, at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

“It's something I've had for a while,” the Penguin said, as though it were nothing at all and Zsasz's response were immaterial; a trifle to reward a faithful servant, though Zsasz had been anything _but_ , “but with...everything, it just--the timing never seemed right.” The diminutive kingpin was suddenly rambling, pushing futilely back against the weighty silence as his enforcer stared mutely at the box's contents.

The sleek, blue-finished Colt M1911A had an intricate tracery of Gough-worthy engraving down the barrel accented by Art Deco-inspired gold inlay, and hand-dyed blue mother-of-pearl grips. The circular gold monogram on the slide featuring the assassin's own interlocking Deco-style initials had Zsasz blinking rapidly to banish the sudden sting of an unexpected swell of emotion.

“I believe it's the same model as the one given to you by Don Falcone,” Oswald was still talking, his nerves becoming more evident the longer he spoke. “I thought it might be in good company. Or perhaps it was in poor taste. Is it too much? It's too much, isn't it? Just forget about it, I--”

Zsasz finally tore his gaze from the superb weapon, turning toward his employer, who had abandoned all pretence of paperwork and nonchalance and was staring at him with wide, glacier-green eyes, a palpable air of silently rising panic thickening the air around him. “She's really for _me_?”

“...Then you do like it?” Oswald's hands paused in tearing at themselves like unhappy lovebirds.

Zsasz smiled, the deep, genuine happiness of it creasing the edges of his faintly reddened eyes and eliciting an answering curl to the Penguin's mouth. “She's _beautiful_ , Boss.”

“You _can_ call me by my name,” Oswald allowed quietly, smile half-fading as he took in the fine details of the assassin's face.

Zsasz cocked his head in consideration, steps silenced by the plush carpet as he moved around the edge of the desk, shortening the distance between them.

“Can I call you _Sir_ ,” Zsasz countered, a veneer of playfulness masking the utter seriousness of the words.

“I--If you wish,” the Penguin answered lightly, despite the breath caught in his throat. With more intent, “If you _kneel_.”

They stared penetratingly at one another for long moments, then Zsasz sank gratefully to his knees.

Oswald lifted a hand, thrilling deeply at the trust implicit in the surety with which Zsasz turned his face into the touch. His thumb traced the line of the scar his ring had left across the assassin's cheekbone amidst the palette of fading bruises from his recent misadventure, a curl of dark satisfaction yawning within him at the permanence of the mark.

“ _You're_ beautiful, Victor,” he murmured, like a secret he wanted to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually one of the first I ever sketched out for this beast, when it was all just a wild idea sparked in part by mainlining all four seasons of _Gotham_ twice through in rapid succession and an overdose of Gordon/Zsasz and Cobblepot/Zsasz in general, and in particular by Vanemis' splendid Gordon/Cobblepot/Zsasz fic [Red Card](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12976710/chapters/29666115), which if you have not read (and you're _here_ , gladly taking in all _this_ crazy), you totally _should_.
> 
> Also, a shout-out of heartfelt thanks to owlettica, for making me feel totally and effusively welcomed to this tiny niche of _Gotham_ fandom. RL is kinda rough and shitty right now, and working on this behemoth has been a fine escape, so thanks for wildly embracing the crazy. *heart hands* x


	30. Oh this town you've never seen before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was so different from how it had been with Ed, with himself left shaky and flat-footed, so insecure after each increasingly close but never close _enough_ encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not certain I am entirely happy with this...but here it is. *scrutinises it this way and that with judgy little eyes*
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _The Demon_ by Emily Jane White.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXX. Oh this town you've never seen before

 _Oh what a day to choose_  
_Torn by the hours_  
_All that I say to you_  
_Is like fuel to fire_

 _Into the town we go, into your hideaway_  
_Where the towers grow, gone to be faraway_  
_Never do we know, never do they give away_  
_Where the towers grow, only you will hear them say_  
_Sing quietly along_  
_Sing quietly along_

\-- _Fuel to Fire_ , Agnes Obel

\+ + +

“...Did you want to have sex?” Zsasz posited the question out of the blue, quietly casual.

Caught off-guard, Oswald trailed a hand with deliberate gentleness over the sparse hatchmarks on the back of Zsasz's shoulder, before finding a quite recent one and pressing down experimentally, delighting in the subtle shudder it elicited in response. "Um, that; I--yes, _later_ \--perhaps we can first discuss what that _means_ for us both?" Despite the elephant in the room, Oswald felt oddly safe and content with the killer's unselfconsciously half-clothed body a supple line of heat along his side, a powerful arm circling his waist, that long fingered, potentially lethal hand tracing absent circles over Oswald's sternum below the loosened knot of his pewter brocade tie like a target.

“Hmm? Sure,” Zsasz murmured belatedly, entirely distracted by the featherlight fingertips sketching shivery patterns across his skin before eliciting such small, teasing pain. He gravitated toward the Boss's hand like a great cat sunning itself in a particularly choice sunbeam, savage instincts briefly subverted by the lazy pursuit of pleasure.  "It means, uh.  Anything you want."  Zsasz playfully nosed the underside of Oswald's jaw, avoiding the faint frown at the lack of specificity in his _carte blanche_ response.

The tip of Zsasz's tongue darted out for a fleeting taste of the thin skin in the hollow of the kingpin's throat, and he practically purred at the reflexive drag of manicured nails moving sharply upward from the small of his back in halfhearted admonishment.  Lowly, "As fast as you want, or...as slow."  There was an openness to Zsasz's dark, earnest gaze that made Oswald feel vaguely unworthy, but he forced himself to meet it directly nonetheless.

He gentled his palm along Zsasz's spine, enjoying the subtle heat of the welts already rising beneath the bone china pallor of the relatively unmarked skin framing the delicate line of vertebrae.  It was so different from how it had been with Ed, with himself left shaky and flat-footed, so insecure after each increasingly close but never close _enough_ encounter. Not that Zsasz didn't thrill him or stop the breath in his chest, but it was in an entirely new way; Zsasz let Oswald fall into step at a pace he could manage rather than leaving him struggling to catch up. He willingly handed Oswald power over him with such seeming ease, and Oswald wanted so desperately to live up to that show of faith. Trust was such a rare commodity among their kind, and it was something the diminutive kingpin greedily wanted to keep.

He relished the opportunity to give and take in turn, rather than being relegated to merely scraping up and hoarding what meagre crumbs of affection as were left scattered in his partner's wake as he had before, contenting himself with such scraps as he was oh so grudgingly given.

Who knew that the feared and reviled _Penguin_ could be so easily undone by such sweet, uncomplicated intimacy as simply lying together. He had not felt anything to compare since before the loss of his mother.

“Thank you, Victor,” he whispered into the comfortable stillness. Sensing the question hovering on his enforcer's parted lips, “For just…being like this.” His eyes smarted suddenly, voice gone to glass. “Letting me hold you.”

Respectfully, Zsasz kept his gaze lowered, fingers pausing their movement to splay firmly over Oswald's breastbone. “No problem. _Sir_.”


	31. One day, it will come to claim its pound of flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Long time no _see_ , Tabs,” Zsasz drawled evenly, looking up from his tonic and lime to rake his eyes appreciatively along the topography of those banging curves before meeting her eyes, “You look _great._ Married life must agree with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Tabby is _awesome._.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through s04e22: _A Dark Knight: No Man's Land_ implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _Poacher's Pride_ by Emily Jane White.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXXI. One day, it will come to claim its pound of flesh

 _I went in search of a_  
_Reasonable man_  
_The one I read about in books_  
_And I drew me up a plan_

 _I said "I'd like to meet him on a corner if I can"_  
_And then we could take either road_  
_Depending upon where we stand_

 _I went in search of a_  
_Reasonable man_  
_And I thought "Ooh it must be lonely_  
_To be the only voice of reason"_  
_The sky went so rosy_  
_Now I hear a rumbling sound_

\-- _Reasonable Man_ , Alela Diane

\+ + +

“Playing ‘king for a day’ while willingly putting yourself back in _jerking_ distance of _Penguin's_ chain? Isn't that a _conflict_ of _interest_?” The little bird's moniker was underscored with a low, honeyed venom that went well past professional animosity into the wild territories of _personal_ and _murderous_ , but the bait was left disappointingly on the line, dark eyes lifting to her own with an equanimity and _understanding_ that set her teeth on edge.

“Long time no _see_ , Tabs,” Zsasz drawled evenly, looking up from his tonic and lime to rake his eyes appreciatively along the topography of those banging curves before meeting her eyes, “You look _great_. Married life must agree with you.” He tipped his head graciously to the seat opposite him in the curved leather booth in silent invitation, catching the bartender's eye over her shoulder. “Drink? On the house.”

She tapped gloved fingertips briefly on the glossy blackness of the tabletop, lips pursing consideration before sliding into the offered seat with the sleek, easy grace of her namesake. “Running your own territory while crawling back to lick Oswald's boots…” She stared him down with a mocking twist to her perfectly lipsticked mouth, holding his gaze steadily, one predator to another. “Busy-busy. Rumour has it you've had _Gordon_ sniffing around, too. Hedging your bets?”

Rather than offended, Zsasz seemed amused. “You think it's mine?” He glanced at the bartender, who had arrived bearing a bottle of top-shelf bourbon and a pair of glasses, expressing his thanks and nodding at her to leave the bottle.

 _Huh?_ Briefly derailed by watching him turn one of the tumblers decisively upside down and pouring a generous measure into the other before sliding it across the table toward her, “...What?”

“The club, the territory, you think that's for me?”

Lips twisting in disgust, “ _Oswald_ , then?”  She eyed her full glass, then his own disused one, before arching an eyebrow at him in silent challenge. _Poison?_

He matched her pointed look evenly, lips curving slightly in a challenge of his own. _Not my style._

 _Touché_. Lifting the glass, she held his gaze as she threw back the contents in a single go, savouring the smooth burn. Pushing the empty glass back across the table, “If not _him_ , then who?”

Zsasz obligingly topped up her glass and slid it back. Despite his easy smile, his gaze was keen. “Scoping out the competition?”

“Something like that.” She circled a fingertip along the edge of the glass, making no move toward its contents.

“Barb send you?”

Her response was quick, and edged. “I came on my own.”

There was a flare of old resentment there, something Zsasz remembered having to make his own peace with. _No shame in following, if there’s someone_ worthy _in front of you. But they’re so few and far between. And even if you_ do _find them, sometimes you fuck it up anyway._

“Cool. Hey, if you're doing recon, you really should meet Bee; _Bee_! You remember Tabby...”

The hand Tabitha found herself taking in a firm, businesslike handclasp belonged to a tall, stunning woman with close-cropped hair and skin like heirloom mahogany that she remembered seeing in Zsasz's company; one of his infamous _girls_ , then. Though the handshake was brief, the once-over _Bee_ gave her had far more intent behind it than Zsasz's earlier appraisal.

“Sabine.”

Tabitha felt a lick of heat in her belly at the gravel behind that cool contralto as she met the directness of dark, heavy lidded eyes. “Tabitha.” A beat, then, “So this is your place, then?”

“As much as it is anyone's.” Sabine cut a pointed glance at Zsasz, her smooth tone underlaid with the beaten bones of a momentarily tabled difference of opinion. “I hope V is _playing_ a decent host.”

“Better than some; no one's tied to a chair yet.”

The twinned gleams of speculation in two pairs of dark eyes had her definitely seeing the _family resemblance_ , for all that the wordless, almost hivemind efficiency and connection between Zsasz and his adoptive cohort of lost girls was often seen in an entirely different and unflattering light.

+

After a few more double-entendred pleasantries and odd, twinny moments, Sabine had moved on, called back to the business of running her small kingdom. Tabitha watched her go with a shamelessness that did not go unmarked, and she met Zsasz's knowing smirk evenly before taking a healthy swallow of bourbon.

She watched Zsasz breezily drain his second tonic and lime with narrowed eyes, snagging its replacement as the waifish barback was setting it on the table and taking an experimental sniff, then a small, wary taste. Her nose wrinkled, mouth screwing up in disbelief. “...Tonic?”

“Yeah?” He plucked his poached beverage from her grasp and met her incredulous gaze, entirely unruffled. “So?”

Feline curiosity warred with the urge to _not_ deliberately step on any landmines. “Are you... _sober_?”

He shrugged it off in that enviable way he had. “Not exactly, just...there are other ways to unwind, and I don't have a great tolerance, so.”

Briefly speculating on what a person like Zsasz would consider _unwinding_ , before deciding that some firebreathing, gold-hoarding cavedwellers were better left napping, she reached for the abandoned second tumbler and decisively turned it over. “I'm getting you drunk.”

“No.”

Undeterred, “Then you can at least have _one_ drink with me. Drinking alone is for washed-up cops and losers.”

He met the challenge in her eyes narrowly, knowing he would most likely live to regret it, but, “...One.”

 _One_ turned out to be more than enough for the evening to devolve into a one-upping tit-for-tat of increasingly ludicrous _work_ stories, each being careful not to tread onto the unspoken no-man's land of recent, shared history, and a drawn-out round of the knife-game that got so out of hand Sabine came over to give them a good glaring-to and summarily confiscated all of their remaining sharp objects.

+

“You know I can't let it stand, Victor.”

They had passed the point of silly and outrageous and rounded the corner back to a post-buzz, almost-drunk solemnity that often ended up tipping over the edge into maudlin and weepy, though they weren't quite _there. Yet._

Or maybe they _were_ ; those were definitely the start of tears in her fierce, dark-hooks-for-the-soul eyes.

“He has to _pay_ for what he did. To Butch.” _To me._

“I know.”  _Blood for blood._   “I can't stand by and let you hurt him, Tabby.”

“I _know_.”


	32. Underneath the grass would grow, aiming at the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zsasz raised an eyebrow at the particular edge to Oswald's tone. _Definitely skipped lunch._ That, or someone's fuck-up was about to earn them a ball peen hammer someplace _fun_ ; the Boss's _peeved_ voice and _hangry_ voice _were_ fairly similar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings through the end of _Gotham_ season 4 implied. Chapter title taken from a line of _The Curse_ by Agnes Obel.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXXII. Underneath the grass would grow, aiming at the sky

_Oh, it was certain then_   
_And we were trying to stop the winter_   
_Killing all it could_   
_Killing all it could_

_And I pray aloud for you_   
_And I look out for you_

_We are what we are_   
_Don't need no excuses_   
_For the scars_   
_From our mothers_

_And we know what we know_   
_Cause we're made of all the little bones_   
_Of our fathers_

_\--The Woods,_ Daughter

\+ + +

Zsasz eyed the stacks of little worksheets dubiously, thumbing through them with care before glancing back to the eyes fixed upon him so expectantly.

“Not sure I'm the best one to be asking questions about homework; where's your pop?”

Martin scribbled furiously on his little pad, before holding it up towards Zsasz. _Working_.

“Is that so? How long's he been in there?”

More furious scribbling. _Since breakfast._

“He could probably use a break, then. We should bring an offering to appease the beast; knowing him he worked through lunch. What do you think?”

_Yes. He’s mean when he's hangry._

“Truth, kiddo.” Zsasz moved to the fridge to inspect its contents. “So, roast beef, or chicken?”

+

Zsasz stopped with his hand on the doorknob, about to just walk in, but pausing upon hearing a particular shrill refrain in his head from days past. He debated for a moment, considering ignoring it, then cut a glance at Martin. Reconsidered.

He rapped his knuckles briskly on the solid oak door to the office. “Boss?”

“ _What?_ ”

Zsasz raised an eyebrow at the particular edge to Oswald's tone. _Definitely skipped lunch._ That, or someone's fuck-up was about to earn them a ball peen hammer someplace _fun_ ; the Boss's _peeved_ voice and _hangry_ voice _were_ fairly similar.  He took the fact that the little bird had answered as permission enough to open the door. “Sorry, Boss. You busy?”

“Of _course_ I’m _busy_ , “ Oswald snapped, brittle with overwork and low blood sugar. “What do you _think_ \--” He stopped short upon spotting Martin standing slightly behind Zsasz's mile-long legs with a plate clutched to his chest, watching wide-eyed as his guardian wound up for a proper, full-tilt tirade. “Martin.”

“Someone thought you could use a break. And a sandwich.”

Emboldened by the fact that Oswald was no longer actively yelling, Martin stepped forward to place the plate on the edge of the desk like an offering before a small, capricious deity.

Oswald pulled the plate to himself, giving the very fine specimen of sandwich set precisely at its center all due and careful consideration, noting the wilted arugula and fresh avocado spread that wouldn't precisely come to mind as _first_ choice for a nine-year-old. “For _me_?” At Martin's small nod, “How very thoughtful, thank you.”

Two pairs of dark eyes watched the kingpin lift the sandwich to take a small, polite bite, only to suddenly realize how ravenous he was and demolish the better part of it in short order, like a pack of wolves falling upon that first, new-legged springtime kill after a lean winter.

Satisfied, Zsasz purposely faded to the background, waiting until the Boss had turned his full attention back to the boy and inquired after Martin’s day with his tutor before leaving them to it and returning to his rounds.


	33. Left those words a-hanging like a red dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You going to try and make me_ choose _, Jim?” Zsasz's voice was low, painstakingly level._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I _told_ you I hadn't forgotten about Jim. *preemptively ducks thrown objects*
> 
> The next installment should be up in short order. Work has been so. _slow_. that we have resorted to crosswords and scrolling aimlessly (and clearly, posting fanfic) to keep ourselves from staring aimlessly at each other, so...enjoy.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through _Gotham_ season 4 implied.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXXIII. Left those words a-hanging like a red dress

 _Buried in arms_  
_Buried in arms_  
_Buried in arms_  
_Can't tell if it's your elbows or twine_  
_All wrapped 'round my waist_  
_A tangled mess divine_  
_Buried in arms_  
_Buried in arms_  
_Buried in arms_  
_Can't tell whose triggers are whose_  
_So we'll pull every one_  
_Firing diamonds at boots_

 _\--Buried in Teeth_ , Mariee Sioux

\+ + +

“It's okay if you love Jim, you know. I'm not--I'm not _greedy_.”

Zsasz’s small, disbelieving huff, even with him turned away so Oswald could curl against the warm curve of the assassin's relatively unscarred back, lit the smaller man's cheeks with flame.

“I'm trying not to be,” Oswald amended, the twist of his lips falling halfway between sour and rueful.

“I don't think…”

“You don't think what?” The Penguin kept his tone deliberately low; getting Zsasz to _share_ was like luring a stray cat, mostly, despite how open and patient and even _playful_ he had proved to be in the bedroom.

“I don't think it really matters.”

+

“ _So, you and Oswald. That’s a thing now. ”_

 _“You going to try and make me_ choose _, Jim?” Zsasz's voice was low, painstakingly level. “He's the only person outside of a_ scene _who's ever--”_

 _“Ever_ what _?”_

_“--called me...beautiful.”_

_Jim winced at the blankness whitewashed over layers of leashed emotion in Zsasz's tone. “Maybe he's just the only one you could ever_ believe _.”_

+

Oswald opened his mouth, poised to fire off a rebuttal to the flip comment, but Zsasz was already elucidating, in that deliberately blank tone that the kingpin had rapidly grown to hate.

“You being greedy, or...not greedy. Jim isn't--I don't think he really _wants_ me any more, so...be as greedy as you want, Boss.” After he voiced the words, Zsasz felt a painful surge of emotion, like an icepick jammed beneath his breastbone.

His eyes were suddenly hot; he felt oddly grateful to have his back to Oswald so as to steal a moment to level himself, but then there was a slim, insistent hand tugging him over onto his back, pale eyes glaring into his, clever tongue clearly poised with a tart remark.

+

_The hurt flickered across Zsasz's expression so quickly Jim might have imagined it. “...That all you got?”_

Shit _. “That's not--”_

 _Zsasz's sudden smile was terrible, his gaze the yawning blackness behind blown out window panes. “Come on,_ Jim _, my Bubbe hits harder than that.”_

+

Whatever Oswald had been about to say withered on the vine when he saw Zsasz's face. Visibly softening, he studied his enforcer intently as he murmured, “I _highly_ doubt that,” injecting as much certainty in his voice as he could muster, despite how it galled him to be defending, when it came down to brass tacks, _the_ _competition_ , as it were.

In more ways than one, it _would_ be simpler if Jim were out of the picture; having lived a life almost entirely void of requited affection--with the exception of his sainted mother, and now, the unexpected _connection_ he felt to Martin--the thought of having Victor's devotion all to himself was not an unpleasant one, and appealed to his desire for absolute loyalty and total control.

But at the same time, the prospect of that wealth of feeling--the longing and affection Jim had tried and failed to mask when Oswald had been able to properly observe them in a room together, and the way that Zsasz, his supposedly stone-cold, sadistic killer, had _responded_ that warmth, inexorably drawn into Jim's orbit and answering subtly in kind despite that omnipresent veneer of blank professionalism--suddenly turned on its head to antipathy, or apathy, even, left Oswald with an odd, unexpected sense of loss he couldn't shake.

 _Love is unselfish, Oswald,_ he could clearly hear Ed's voice sneering loftily at him from his high-ground of passionate, obsessive love for a dead woman with whom he had only been acquainted for a few brief weeks in total.

As he ghosted a fingertip along the smooth curve of Zsasz's orbital bone, before leaning in to chase the lingering bitterness from his mouth and the ghosts from Zsasz's eyes with the stolen, lazy softness of a kiss, Oswald couldn't help but to silently agree with his erstwhile flame, in spite of himself.


	34. But I am not so quick to break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim turned the envelope over in his hands, feeling a queer blend of dread and anticipation as he took in the costly weight of the crisp black vellum, his name penned informally across the front in a familiar, angular hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings for _Gotham_ season 4 apply. Chapter title taken from a line of _Mean_ by Nicole Dollanganger.
> 
> Comments are love, as always.

XXXIV.  But I am not so quick to break

_Well you can try to sink down deeply_   
_And find the children lost at sea_   
_Find the children who discreetly_   
_Be killed in infancy_

_To stop them holding you and screaming_   
_That you'll lose your wildest dreaming_   
_Still reminding you of him_   
_How he left without reasons_

_But you, you always find another place to go_   
_(Oh you) you always find another womb to grow_

_\--Lifeforms,_ Daughter

\+ + +

“Yo Jim, this just came for you.” Harvey tossed something at him, narrowly missing a direct hit to one of the precarious skyscrapers in the craggy cityscape of paperwork dwarfing Jim's desk.

Jim caught the article in question by a narrow margin, reflexes dulled by long days rolling one into another, trying to make some sense of the immense undertaking of keeping his kneecapped, battered city on her feet instead of letting the old girl tap out and devolve into total anarchy.

The bridge reconstruction project was in its early days, aided by generous donations from the deep pockets of certain _concerned_ and well-to do citizens. In the meantime, a trickle of bare bones supplies was coming in across the ferries, as well as along the routes delineated by the Bailey Bridges to the north and west that the recent National Guard contingent had implemented, though they held the checkpoints in ironfisted control, and the lion's share of the docks fell under the purview of Penguin or his lesser criminal contemporaries. The black market was alive and thriving, keeping the GCPD in a stranglehold between two powerful entities, treading water to stay alive.

Jim turned the envelope over in his hands, feeling a queer blend of dread and anticipation as he took in the costly weight of the crisp black vellum, his name penned informally across the front in a familiar, angular hand.

“So, what? First _Zsasz_ , now the Penguin flaps his hanky and you come a-runnin?”


	35. And told me to pull out his teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had only put up a token protest before caving to Harvey's demands; despite practically living in each other's pockets at work, it had been ages since they'd hung out together off the clock, and anything was better than going home to face the emptiness of his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All relevant spoiler warnings for s4 of _Gotham_ apply. Chapter title taken from a line of _Dog Teeth_ by Nicole Dollanganger.
> 
> Comments are shiny and bright, darlings.

XXXV. And told me to pull out his teeth

 _Throw me in a landfill_  
_Don't think about the consequences_  
_Throw me in the dirt pit_  
_Don't think about the choices that you make_  
_Throw me in the water_  
_Don't think about the splash I will create_  
_Leave me at the altar_  
_Knowing all the things you just escaped_

 _Push me out to sea_  
_On a little boat that you made_  
_Out of the evergreen_  
_That you helped your father cut away_  
_Leave me on the tracks_  
_To wait until the morning train arrives_  
_Don't you dare look back_  
_Walk away_  
_Catch up with the sunrise_

 _Cause this is torturous electricity_  
_Between both of us and this is_  
_Dangerous cause I want you so much_  
_But I hate your guts_  
_I hate you_

 _\--Landfill,_ Daughter

\+ + +

Somehow Jim found himself facing down the scarred and stained bartop at one of the few neutral dives still left standing and stubbornly keeping their doors open after everything, strong-armed into a night out with Harvey in spite of a dreadfully distinct lack of enthusiasm and the envelope burning a hole in his inner jacket pocket. He had only put up a token protest before caving to Harvey's demands; despite practically living in each other's pockets at work, it had been ages since they'd hung out together off the clock, and anything was better than going home to face the emptiness of his apartment.

The remembered _hurt_ in Victor's eyes had dogged him since that night, leaving Jim chewing over his own heart in the blue hours as he turned his words over in his mind, thinking of a hundred ways he could have gone about it differently and convinced the assassin to _stay_ , all the while blankly mapping the well-traveled, waterstained moonscape of his bedroom ceiling and driving himself crazy imagining the all the _liberties_ Zsasz might have gladly ceded to Oswald in the interim.

He felt the weight of the Penguin's most recent, primly-worded _challenge_ like a brand against his chest; an albatross of knotted-up guilt and regret, envy and loneliness, that only seemed to deepen as his partner lined up a shot and a refill in front of him with a comradely shoulder-clap.

Jim tossed back the shot, grimacing at the hard burn of cut-rate tequila. He contemplated the empty glass bleakly before reaching for his beer, which he consequently drained at a pace that had Harvey fixing him with a keen side-eye.

“Something you wanna get off your chest, Jimbo?”

The honest concern underlying his partner's gruff tone made Jim's eyes burn suddenly. Forcibly pushing it away, he answered roughly, “Nothing you'd want hear.”

Harvey's jaw tightened as he chewed it over for some moments. He took a slow pull from his pint glass and savoured the bitter dance of the hops across his tongue as he weighed his options.

After a frayed length of tense, stilted silence, Harvey pinned his partner with a bracing stare and a firmly resolute, “ _Try_ me, kid,” knocking back the dregs and catching the bartender's eye to signal for another round.


	36. Thought you said you didn't feel pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd carried a torch for men who hadn't felt the same before, taking it as his due and following orders, void of complaint; he should be _used_ to it. He had the _Boss_ now, and Oswald had him. He should know better than to _want_ too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take my previous Jim-brooding and up the ante with a coordinating book-end of Zsasz-brooding. You're welcome. *ducks to avoid the oncoming barrage of old produce and pocketstones*
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings through _Gotham_ s4 apply. Not s5-compliant (because hello, _my Tabby_ o_o); I feel I have veered too far to reel it back into line with show-canon at this point, though I _will_ try to cherrypick some details to work into weft of this thing if they can fit without too much trouble; absolutely LOVE me some grotty dystopian Gotham aesthetic.
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of _Landfill_ by Daughter.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXVI. Thought you said you didn't feel pain

 _And I lay frozen on the lawn_  
_I lay frozen here ‘til dawn_

 _My marble eyes_  
_My heart of stone_  
_Is housed in a bereft unknown_  
_I take your hand and I walk you out_  
_Leave you now, to the frozen south_

 _And if you knew me you would wait_  
_For, unto the day_  
_Oh the day, oh the day, oh the day, oh the day_  
_When I wake_

 _Oh your dreaded, poisoned past_  
_So you left him for one last glass_  
_You point the pistol and he points it back_  
_Though you love him you’ll never fight back_

 _\--Wake,_ Emily Jane White

\+ + +

The girls had given him a wide berth since he'd hit the mats, taking one look at the blankness behind Zsasz’s eyes and either finding somewhere else to urgently _be_ , or in the case of a few brave, long-time veterans, wordlessly moving in concert to the far side of the floor that had been cleared and kitted out as a rough training room and partial armoury in the fortified warehouse that he and the girls _not_ ass-deep in Bowery business were currently using as a base of operations.

_It's--_

The heavy bag rocked beneath the force of his taped fists, the chains suspending it chiming ominously as Oswald's words resonated in his head.

\-- _okay_ \--

He didn't quite know what to do with them, where to put them down; he chewed them over like a dog with a bone that had since been reduced to splinters. They caught in his teeth, lacerated his insides, leaving him with a chestful of shrapnel and copper on his tongue.

 _\--if you_ \--

He'd carried a torch for men who hadn't felt the same before, taking it as his due and following orders, void of complaint; he should be _used_ to it. He had the _Boss_ now, and Oswald had him. He should know better than to _want_ too much.

\-- _love_ \--

But it was somehow _worse_ , knowing how the detective smelled in early morning, like sleep sweat and yesterday's aftershave, or the workworn texture of Jim's palms curling possessively against his bare spine. The way Jim seemed to smile for Zsasz alone, a thin flash of teeth in the dark, before kissing him fully awake. How neatly they fit together at the broken places, so differently from he and the Boss, yet so unexpectedly, equally _right_ in a way Zsasz could never have been able to anticipate on that first, terrible day, when Jim had seen Zsasz at his _lowest_ and still drawn him closer instead of turning him away.

\-- _Jim, you--_

The only one bold enough to approach him, Tish moved into Zsasz’s periphery, work leathers moderately scorched and updo looking even more _avant-garde_ than usual.

The faint scent of char and ozone still lingered in the air around her as she absently rubbed at her smokestained face with a towel, avoiding a burn that slanted downward along the edge of her browbone, having missed her eye by a narrow margin. “Rough day?”

 _It’s okay if you love_ \--

Zsasz raked her with a sharp once-over, not breaking the steady, vicious rhythm of his strikes. “Shouldn't I be asking you that?”

Her mouth twisted into a brief moue of consideration. “Just Firefly and her cronies, testing our eastern defense line. It's handled.”

His pace slowed, eyes cutting back to her in concern. “Any serious casualties?

“Nothing to write home about; a few second- and third-degree burns, the usual collateral shopping list of dented pride, a few cracked ribs, sundry cuts and bruises. It wasn't a full assault, more...dropping stones in the pond to see what surfaces.”

“Sharks take a testing bite, right before they tear your leg off. Keep the girls on their toes, and watch your back. Bridget's capable of some pretty nasty work.” He'd upped the pace again, focusing on his breathing, the soothing, rhythmic flare from ache to sharpness with each impact.

“Will do.” She studied him for long moments, marking each minute tell; the stiff set of his shoulders, the heavy, wild intention behind each savagely landed strike, the quiet line of tension between his eyes. “...You wanna talk about it?”

He turned his full focus back to the bag, effectively shutting her out. “Not really.”

“Okay.” She eyed him dubiously, but didn't press, taking a step back and turning, presumably to go get herself cleaned up.

 _It's okay_ \--

His vision tunneled on the bag, eyes smarting, and he forgot to pull back on his punch, landing the hit off-center and feeling something _give_ beneath the tape at the undue force of the strike.

\-- _if you_ \--

Breath hissing between his teeth with the caged force of several choice, unsung expletives, he stepped back from the bag, unwinding the tape jerkily to feel out the lines of his metacarpals and see if it was an actual break, a hairline, or just something sprained or dislocated.

Tish was standing near the door, a wrapped cold pack taking the heat out of her burn as she shamelessly watched him from across the room.

Her eyes marked his stormy, silent approach, wordlessly holding out the second cold pack she'd been holding in reserve with her free hand until he accepted it with a grudging nod and muttered thanks before brushing past her to hit the showers.

The words trailed close behind, strung together with garroting wire and drawing blood with countless small, relentless bites, as merciless as a heeler.

_It's okay if you love Jim, you know._


	37. We play the knife game on the table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jim! I see you received my note. Please, do sit down.”
> 
> Jim regarded the fireside sitting area where they'd had their previous _chat_ warily, taking the open seat to which Oswald had gestured expansively as though it were wired to go off at any moment. He was keenly aware of the fact that the last time he'd been in this room, it had been Victor sitting where Jim was now, looking to Oswald as though he had hung the moon and set the stars in their firmament.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to suss out Jim's reaction to this conversation has been...interesting, to say the least. (Os, however, is completely in his element; he LOVES having the upper hand, _especially_ over our favourite detective.) I kept turning this chapter this way and that, nipping and snipping and rewriting, but I am _more_ than ready to move onward, so... Hope it's not _too_ poorly done.
> 
> All relevant spoiler warnings for s4 implied. Chapter title from a line of _American Tradition_ by Nicole Dollanganger.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXXVII. We play the knife game on the table

 _The axes who pacify with gold_  
_And they walk right into town_  
_And a man stood_  
_He was brought back by Lady Luck_

 _And he was so strong, and he was so strong, and he was so strong_  
_He was so strong, he was so strong, he was strong_  
_He said, Lady, where's your dark undercoat?_

 _Then he rode away and he rode away and he died_  
_Said I am not strong, and I am not wide, and I am not long_  
_I am not strong and I am not wide, I'm not long_

 _\--Dark Undercoat_ , Emily Jane White

\+ + +

“Jim! I see you received my note. Please, do sit down.”

Jim regarded the fireside sitting area where they'd had their previous _chat_ warily, taking the open seat to which Oswald had gestured expansively as though it were wired to go off at any moment. He was keenly aware of the fact that the last time he'd been in this room, it had been Victor sitting where Jim was now, looking to Oswald as though he had hung the moon and set the stars in their firmament. “...Is he here?”

“It's disco night at _Zenobia_ ,” Oswald answered offhandedly, as though that explained everything. “Something to drink?”

“No. Thanks,” Jim tacked on belatedly, hearing echoes of Zsasz's admonishments to be more polite as he studied the play of firelight across the deep garnet-filled curve of the wineglass caught within the cage of that deceptively fragile hand.

“Suit yourself.” Oswald took a contemplative swallow of his Sangiovese, then set the glass aside. “To business, then.”

+

The kingpin steepled his fingers, pinning Jim with an interrogation-room worthy stare. It was oddly effective; Jim almost felt bad for the skells he and Harvey used to brace on the regular, back when things were so much simpler.

"...Why am I here?"

Oswald said nothing, continuing to study him with eyes that missed nothing and that intense, unnerving silence.

As though the words were being pulled from him involuntarily, "I know in your note--I mean, I don't really--I know he must like...different things.  You said, um."  He resisted the urge to fidget, feeling not unlike he had just been called to the carpet in the principal's office for some youthful misbehavior.  "The way he _is_ with you, it's not really...  I just--I don't want to… _hurt_ him.”

Oswald crowed inwardly at the sight of the Great Detective Gordon, upright citizen and champion of justice, reduced to a stammering, awkward wreck at thought of laying a little consensual pain on his enforcer, but his answering laugh was more amused than truly cruel.

 _I’m afraid you've already pushed_ that _particular boat out, detective, and you didn't even use your fists_. “Victor Zsasz is no shrinking violet, _James_.”

“I know that.” Jim was on the defensive, and he _hated_ it.

“If the elephant in the room that you're attempting to talk _around_ with typical blunt instrument finesse is that _Victor_ is a masochist with a burning desire to be told _what to do_ \--and yes, a shockingly tender heart beating away beneath all that delightful professional brutality and sadism,” Oswald continued as though Jim hadn't spoken, clearly thrilling at twisting the knife at least a little, though his pale eyes were calculating, “--you’re not wrong, but he is _still_ the best and brightest in his field, with a frankly _prodigious_ flair for violence even I can't match, though not for want of trying. Some people are just born _gifted_ , wouldn't you agree?”

He watched the colour climb high in Jim's face, even as the detective's knuckles whitened in anger, and pressed his advantage. ”A real go-getter, our Victor; more than a match for even the _great_ Jim Gordon and his _brute_ physical prowess. Not some _nice girl_ you can woo with roses and walks in the park--or whatever _wholesome_ , post-Valeska, _après_ -apocalypse equivalent--and bring home to Detective _Bullock_.” At Jim's pointedly raised eyebrow and clenched jaw, Oswald pushed his point, “Do you _honestly_ think him incapable of defending himself? Against _either_ of us, should the need arise?”

“Just because he can, doesn't mean he will,” Jim said grimly.

 _Touché_. “Then, may I propose that we check each other.” The delicate penknife's edge of Oswald's jaw sharpened with tension as his teeth ground against one another, then he urbanely continued, “I for one would strongly prefer _not_ having him coming home wearing bruises put there by anyone else. I don't like to _share_ , Jim; I'm sure you can understand.”

Jim _could_ understand, _all_ too well.

“But I would be willing to share, or _try_ , anyway. With _you_.”

+

... _Come again?_ “...Why?” _Why_ bother?

Try as he might, Jim couldn't see the angle. Why not _take_ the spoils of his _victory_ and just… He found himself briefly, infuriatingly distracted by that particular train of thought, almost missing the Penguin's reply.

“Because I'm _tired_ , Jim, of watching him mope around like someone shot his dog. Of him being here, but not _here_ , ever since he twisted whatever feeble attempts at _communication_ befell your last assignation into the preposterous sentiments of your not _wanting_ him anymore.”

 _Wait_ , what? Feeling like he'd taken a lucky jab to the solar plexus, Jim though back dizzily over his last encounter with Zsasz.

He'd known that his hasty, jealous words had definitely landed in a couple of tender places, but just assumed, at the assassin's ensuing silence, the strange, desperate intensity of when they'd come together and Zsasz's immediate, wordless taking of his leave after, that it was _Victor_ who was finished with _him_.

That terrible certainty had grown in the days to follow when he heard nothing to the contrary, his sad little flat ringing hollowly as a tomb when he could be bothered to come home after running himself ragged pulling another double-triple-whatever followed that in exponentially drawn out shift, having been summarily kicked to the curb by Harvey, who despite their recent differences over Jim's _suspect_ love life stared after him more often than not with concerned eyes and an unhappy tightness to his mouth as he made sure Jim actually _left_ the station.

That was, until the flag of truce and even reconciliation that was their recent night on the town together, when Harvey had looked Jim squarely in the eye for the first time since walking in on him and Victor, and demanded that Jim spill his guts, to the tune of many, many tequila shots.

“I never said that.” Had he? He'd been angry, and hurt, and turned his words over in his head so many times in the interim. Now he turned them in a completely different direction, trying to see it from whatever vantage had sent Zsasz running back to Oswald after that last, desperate fuck; a fierce, brutal bid to grasp futilely at something Jim felt was already slipping through his hands.

“Well, whatever you did say, it was equally _effective_ , wouldn't you say?”

 _Touché_. Jim met the recrimination in Oswald's gaze head on, accepting it as his due and unable to believe he was even entertaining the idea. “...So how exactly is this supposed to work?”


	38. Because I prayed this word: I want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you just...decided to take yourself on a little field trip into enemy territory. Without backup.” _Real smart, Jim. Why not just_ ask _to take a bullet, if that's what you're after._ “And insult my music.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all asked for more Jim. Enjoy.
> 
> Now that I am (finally) caught up, I _am_ attempting to interweave some elements from season 5, though this crazy train has gone too far to rein in and make entirely canon-compliant... Let's just call this a parallel universe, with vague, blanket spoilers for the first few episodes of _Gotham_ s5, just to be safe (I am still earlier in timeline than the show is currently focusing on, so who knows _what_ could happen. 
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of fragment 22 by Sappho (translated by Anne Carson).
> 
> Comments are love.

XXXVIII. Because I prayed this word: I want

 _I don't want to be your girl_  
_I want to be your gun_  
_Blow the jaw right off_  
_That handsome face_  
_A .44 magnum_

 _I've been cruising 'round these parts_  
_Been looking for some fun_  
_I was born way back in '58_  
_Don't belong to anyone_

 _\--Beautiful and Bad_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“...ABBA? Really?”

Narrowly missing cracking his head in startlement on the underside of the hood he was currently leaning beneath, Zsasz straightened from his awkward sprawl across the engine of his best girl.

He wiped grease-stained palms absently on the front of the sleeveless undershirt he had stripped down to when he first started tinkering around in the guts of the Chevelle, belatedly remembering that he had left a rag within easy reach for just that purpose. _Oops_.

Taking a moment to school the ambivalence from his expression, Zsasz put forth a rote mask of empty professionalism as he turned to face his not _entirely_ welcome company. The volume of the music may have masked any approaching footfalls, but that voice was unmistakable.

Zsasz cocked an eyebrow at the opening dig, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back into the cool solidity of the Chevelle. _Don_ 't judge; _I've_ seen _your record collectio_ n. “ _Jim_... You lost? Pretty sure the Green Zone is on the other side of town.”

“Peng--Oswald said you weren't on the rotation tonight. ...He told me where to find you.”

... _Did he, now?_ Dark eyes narrowed at the deliberate use of the little bird's given name, as opposed to his underwold moniker. _Since when do you and the_ Boss... “So you just...decided to take yourself on a little field trip into enemy territory. Without backup.” _Real smart, Jim. Why not just_ ask _to take a bullet, if that's what you're after._ “And insult my music.”

Jim had the good grace to at least wince at the last. _If this is a booty call, you're off to a bang-up start, Jimbo. Pun_ not _intended_. Funnily enough, his caustic inner voice sounded not unlike his partner. “...Is it?”

“Huh?” _Don't_ give _me those fucking puppy eyes, Gordon._

“Enemy territory. ...Your girls seemed keen enough to let me in without too much fuss.” And perhaps an over-brisk frisking. The ashy blonde had glared absolute _daggers_ at him, but the redhead patting him down had _definitely_ copped a feel when she'd confiscated his weapons and sent him into the bowels of the beast with a slap on the ass that he _still_ felt the sting of.

 _Those interfering bitches._ “Seems I need to have a word with them about security protocol.”

“Seems like.” Jim cast about for something more to say, something _meaningful_ , feeling the potential of the moment slipping through his hands despite his resolution to _fix_ things in coming here, or try.

He looked away from Zsasz, finding the sight of so much white skin, those sinewy, scarred arms and shoulders, that long throat and shapely collarbone, the sliver of hip where thin fabric had come untucked on one side while Zsasz worked on his car, all neatly framed out by the stark blackness of the singlet, _acutely_ distracting.

The makeshift garage was also the assassin's personal armoury, it seemed; Jim marked a solitary nickel-finished M1911A and a pearl-gripped Taurus, as well as matched pairs of what looked to be LE-standard S&W M&P40s and G19s studding the wall above a workbench spread with a heaped assortment of spent brass, a press, and various other sundry accoutrements for handloading ammunition. At the far end of the bench sat a pair of nondescript wooden boxes and a neat roll of blades. Farther down the wall beside the array of handguns hung a neat column of assorted rifles, including a heavily customized Lobaev SVR, and--was that a _rocket launcher_?--beneath which were several stacked plywood crates that looked not unlike the ones used to pack M2A1 boxes, mostly hidden by a heavy drape of waxed canvas. The visible edge of the lowermost crate sported tidily stenciled serial numbers and the tail end of triple blue, yellow and red stripes that seemed familiar, but Jim forcibly tabled his curiosity for a later date; he wasn't there in anything approaching an _official_ capacity, and pressing Victor on his possession of what looked to be ‘misappropriated’ military property wasn't going to get him _anywhere_ he wanted to go.

A freestanding black and chrome tool chest had been rolled up to the far side of the Chevelle, with an assortment of interchangeable socket-heads just visible in a partially open drawer. On its other side stood a black 1980 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham with red pinstriping to match the wide red stripes on the hood of the Chevelle, and beyond that, a black Land Rover with a gangsta-worthy tint job that was clearly in the midst of some post-apocalyptic, Road Warrior-esque retrofit.

“It isn't,” Zsasz said suddenly, apropos of nothing, breaking the uncomfortably lengthening silence.

“What?” Jim's eyes cut back to him, pulled from his snooping.

“Enemy territory.” With more resolve, “Our _truce_ still stands. If you want,” he added belatedly, giving Jim a glimpse of something _more_ beyond that pristine, empty mask as he caught the detective's gaze.

“I _want_.”

+

“So, what; you really thought I didn't want _this_?”

Zsasz felt his breath catch in his throat at the hands that slid down past his hips and around to go for a shiver-inducing, borderline painful ass-grab. “I don't know _what_ you want,” he countered, tipping his head back involuntarily as Jim closed his mouth around his Adam's apple for a deliciously slow scrape of teeth.

“I should think that would be obvious.” The hard hitch of Jim's hips against his own _was_ rather telling.

He took no mean measure of satisfaction in sifting a hand through Jim's hair, disrupting that perfect sidepart, his other hand pulling the tail of Jim's shirt free from his slacks so he could flatten his palm agains the warm, bare curve of Jim's spine and pull him into full body contact.  "I don't know...you give out some seriously mixed signals."

Jim huffed an incredulous breath against Zsasz's throat, just shy of an outright laugh. Just. "So do you."

"...Fair." Zsasz felt those hands slide lower, one pulling away entirely to fumble around blindly behind the assassin before unhooking and dropping the Chevelle's hood with an ungentle clang that had Zsasz suppressing a wince. 

Arching an eyebrow as he felt Jim brace to lift him, Zsasz trailed his fingers down Jim's arms to catch his hands and pull them away, resettling them on his hips even as he fixed the detective with a knowing look.

“Whatever _designs_ you may have on my girl, she deserves better than to be subject to your dimestore fantasies like a piece of ass, _detective_.” There were certain _standards_ to be maintained, regardless of the low flicker of heat that curled through Zsasz's gut at the prospect of being bent over his own car as he took a moment to savour the disappointment in Jim's blue, blue eyes before leaning in to steal the barest, teasing whisper of a kiss from his mouth.

His lips ghosted up across Jim's cheek to his ear before he murmured, “I would not, however, be so averse to christening the back seat, if that revs your engine.”


	39. Shame would not hold down your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pausing to discharge a luxuriant plume of smoke, Bekah flashed the lovebirds a wolfish grin, delighting in the way Gordon went scarlet and Zsasz narrowed his eyes, waiting for the punchline. “So much for bringing home a nice, Jewish girl, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh... _this_ chapter. 
> 
> Because the thought of Zsasz living with twenty-odd sisters with zero compunctions about ribbing him _shamelessly_ really does it for me. (And because he and Jim really need to figure their shit out. _Seriously._ )
> 
> Non s5-compliant, but vague spoilers through s05e03: _Penguin, Our Hero_ , to be safe...
> 
> Chapter title taken from this fragment of Sappho, translated by Anne Carson: _I want to say something but shame / prevents me / yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things / and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say / shame would not hold down your eyes / but rather you would speak about what is just_.
> 
> Comments are love.

XXXIX. Shame would not hold down your eyes

 _So get the room with the heart shaped bed_  
_Make something gross feel romantic_  
_Make me so no one will ever want me again_  
_‘Cause when I sleep with faith, I only_  
_Find a corpse in my arms on awakening_

 _Just hold me through these lonely nights_  
_We’ll have a blue wedding tonight_

 _\--Heart Shaped Bed_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

He was drawn from some hazy, sated afterplace by distant sound of a zippo snicking shut and a low, slow exhale. The strains of Blondie's _Heart of Glass_ were just fading in favour of the opening to _Don't Leave Me This Way_.

“ _Damn_ ; I feel like I just got myself an _education_.”

“Definitely worthy of standing _O_ \--”

“--Or at _least_ , a cigarette.”

Zsasz untangled himself from Jim enough to sit up, just in time to catch Polina passing a lit Parliament to Bekah, who brought it to her lips for an exaggerated pull, dark eyes locking firmly with Zsasz's own.

Both women had traded their work leathers for grease-stained coveralls, the little Russian spitfire slouched on the rolling stool in front of his work bench, legs stretched out indolently with ankles crossed in front of her and the sleeves of her coveralls knotted around her waist, whilst Bekah leaned back against the ancient file cabinet beside the bench, dark curls tied up in a yellow headscarf and one meticulously manicured brow hiked mockingly heavenward.

Pausing to discharge a luxuriant plume of smoke, Bekah flashed the lovebirds a wolfish grin, delighting in the way Gordon went scarlet and Zsasz narrowed his eyes, waiting for the punchline. “So much for bringing home a nice, Jewish girl, huh?”

Zsasz folded his arms over the back of the Chevelle's front seat, feeling a smirk curl his lips at the old in-joke despite the utter awkwardness of the situation and Jim silently self-immolating with humiliation beside him. “So much for that.”

+

Zsasz prowled into the room like a great cat, drawn off-course by the lure of whatever was simmering away in a massive pot on the six-top of the safehouse's primary kitchen. “Something smells good.”

Rhett glanced up from an old issue of _Southern Living_ , wineglass in hand and fixing Zsasz with a stare that stopped him dead in his tracks, halting the inner debate as to whether or not he was going to investigate the contents of the pot further with the large spoon so handily placed within reach on its stainless, magnolia-shaped spoon rest; a gag gift from Bekah that Rhett had accepted with characteristic grace, and then proceeded to _never_ let her live down. “ _Mmm-hmm_ ; get your nose outta my gumbo and _out_ of my kitchen, sweet.”

Not one to test Rhett when she had a knife close to hand--or a spoon; she had gotten him _good_ last time--Zsasz set the lid back atop the pot that was the source of the intriguing aroma and moved to kiss her on the cheek, only to have her wrinkle her nose and pin him with a look of intense scrutiny.

“Lord have _mercy_ , Victor; you smell like a trucker's footlocker. And look to have been mauled by a bear.” Clicking her tongue at a particularly painful looking bruise spanning the side of Zsasz's neck, edged with the telltale imprint of teeth, her eyes cut to Jim, who had hung back in the entryway, an awkward set to his shoulders as he observed his surroundings with guarded blue eyes.

Rhett eyed Jim critically, taking in his equally disheveled appearance; the faint redness of what might or might not have been scratches peeking from the loosened collar of an oxford that had certainly lost some of its starch, a telltale smudge of what looked to be motor oil on the lapel of his suit jacket, “And _you're_ not much better.” Glancing back at Zsasz, who had moved on from inspecting the contents of the other, smaller pots on the stove to poking around in the fridge. “ _Go_ get yourself cleaned up and fit for civil company, and perhaps I'll take pity on those sad eyes and feed you.” She included Jim in the scope of her no-bullshit glare. “You, too. _Scoot_.”

Zsasz grinned at her, hooking an arm through Jim's and towing him back out into the corridor, as though it'd been Jim, and not himself, who was to blame for their little detour. “Yes, ma'am.”

Feeling herself soften at the sight of Zsasz looking so much more his old, incorrigible self than he had been for days, Rhett narrowed her eyes after them, unwilling to give an _inch_ for the liberties she knew would consequently be taken, then reached for the bottle to top up her glass.

+

“You have running water. And electricity.” The question was _how_ ; even though the GCPD was still limping along with emergency lanterns and backup generators, supplies were finite, and the National Guard were keeping much to themselves, leaving Jim to sort out the growing number of refugees filtering in from all over the city.

“Scout's motto, Jim.” _And a healthy sense of paranoia, like the old man said._ Zsasz shamelessly leaned back into the luxuriant heat of the spray pounding down on his neck and shoulders, constantly reminded how glad he was that he had gotten around to having closed systems installed in his primary safehouses, particularly because it meant he’d had yet to field any sort of rising tide of mutiny from the ladies over being unable to wash their hair. _Priorities_.

Which reminded him; he really needed to see about getting a few more solar panels; the authorities, it seemed, were _really_ dragging their heels on any sort of push to reclaim the city, and the gennys would only go so far...

“You were never a Boy Scout.” Jim captured one of Zsasz's hands, lacing their fingers together, watching the water spill like gilt across their contrasting skin tones.

“True,” Zsasz allowed, shivering and then reluctantly pulling away when Jim squeezed a bit too intently, causing a flare of pain from the aftereffects of his poorly landed punch. Not that he particularly _minded_ , but he still wasn't sure how much Jim was really _here_ for. Maybe he was just lonely, or desperate. Maybe he really was just that hard up for a fuck, and needed to blow off some steam and take a break from being the savior of the people, or whatever. Maybe--

“What happened here?”

The assassin was broken from the self-devouring serpent of his thoughts by Jim’s gentle recapture of his hand, fingers carefully exploring the remaining tenderness and swelling over the knuckles of Zsasz's middle and ring finger, though it had been much improved by diligent icing--admittedly, at Lilija's forceful, ginger-stubborn insistence--and there didn't seem to be any lasting damage. “Hit landed wrong.”

Jim frowned at the deliberate blankness in Zsasz's tone; the curt, offhand response papering over something raw in his gaze. He resisted Zsasz's attempts to draw his hand back again, inadvertently pressing down on the injury and pulling an involuntary hiss from Zsasz's throat.

“Sorry.” He dropped Zsasz's hand immediately, only to register the briefest, puzzling flicker of disappointment in those dark eyes before they abruptly cut away from his own, marking the brittle, braced set of Zsasz's shoulders, the flags of hectic colour unfurling in pale cheeks. ... _Oh_.

Determined and uncomfortably intrigued, Jim steeled himself and reached for Zsasz's injured hand again, crowding the taller man back against the slick tiles. His free hand framed that strong, angular jawline, forcing Victor to meet his eyes as he laced their fingers together again, carefully seeking out the tenderest place with his fingertips before pressing down, _hard_.

+

The curvy, dark-eyed brunette from the garage turned a brief glance at Jim from where she was sprawled with deceptive ease in her seat at a round, glass-topped dining table, seemingly riveted by an old recorded episode of _Top Chef._

Zsasz was, shockingly, still sprawled across the wide, dark expanse of his bed in a tangle of blankets, entirely dead to the world, but Jim had been feeling oddly wired and unable to sleep, and so taken it upon himself to explore, despite the tried and true adage concerning cats and curiosity.

Bekah hooked her foot around an empty barstool from the nearby peninsula that separated the modest dining area from the kitchenette and kicked it out for him in wordless invitation, cutting her eyes back to the show for a moment before clicking the small screen off with the touch of a remote and fixing the detective with the full weight of her gaze.

Jim's stomach dropped as he was overcome with the sudden, unwavering certainty that he was about to be treated to some chilling, mercenary riff on the time-tested _shovel talk_. Her eyes, so similar in shade to Victor’s, and as chillingly uncompromising, pinned him in place like an insect on a mounting board.

Bracing himself for whatever was about to fall out of her mouth, he was caught off-balance when her lips curled into an approximation of her earlier wolfish smile, but with far sharper edges.

“He let you have at it in the _sanctum sanctorum_ of his precious Chevelle; it must be _love_.”

Whatever Jim had been expecting her to say, that was _not_ it. He floundered, cheeks flaming. “Uh--”

“Whatever the contents of your neatly labeled manila folders may say about him, there isn't a woman here who doesn't owe him something beyond repayment, and who wouldn't gladly step in front of a bullet for him.” The hard, northern edges of her voice were worlds away from Rhett's honey-slow southern tones, but the underlying affection and total loyalty was, batch and bolt, a cut of the same cloth.

 _Don't fuck it up_ , was the silent addendum writ across her eyes, _or I'll bury your ass so deep, even_ he _won't find you._


	40. The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Out with it, kid!” Harvey barked, deflating only slightly when he came up against Alvarez's flatly unimpressed look, even as the rookie stared at him with deer-in-headlights eyes, all wide and idealistic; not unlike a certain brash young cop of Harvey's acquaintance, way back in the beginning before the city had stomped up one side of him and down the other like an abusive lover and knocked some of the shine off. With slightly less bite, “ _Today_ would be preferable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still only vague blanket spoiler warnings for s5 so far, but there will be some direct references and dialogue drawn from specific episodes in future installments.
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of the poem _Ozymandias_ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which can be found [here](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias).
> 
> Comments are love, my sweets.

XL.  The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed

 _Buddy I went down to Scarlet Town_  
_Ain't never been there before_  
_Well, you slept on a feather bed_  
_I slept on the floor_

 _Now I don't mind a little town_  
_Or drinking my coffee cold_  
_But the things I seen in Scarlet Town_  
_Did mortify my soul_

 _Well, look at that deep well_  
_Look at that dark grave_  
_Ringing that iron bell_  
_In Scarlet Town today_

 _\--Scarlet Town_ , Gillian Welch

\+ + +

"Talk to me, Alvarez."

“Someone just hit the National Guard posts. _Hard.”_

“Sweet _Christmas_.” Harvey eyed Jim's war-map dubiously, glancing between the narrow, hand-drawn marks indicating the temporary bridges that the Guard had erected, which had been a lifeline to much-needed supplies, however slim the trickle-down effect. “Which ones?”

Alvarez's expression was grim; then again, whose wasn't these days?

“All of them.”

+

“Any survivors?”

“None that we saw; the place was a charnel house, V. Those that didn't die outright looked to have been run down and executed."

Zsasz’s brow furrowed as he unselfconsciously dropped his towel and reached for the neatly folded pile at the edge of his dresser, Xue Lin having caught him fresh from the shower when she came to report in before going off-shift. “And their bridges?”

“Blown.”

 _Swell_.

+

 _Shit, fuck, and damn._ Harvey wiped a hand down his face. “Got any _bad_ news for me, then?” he demanded.

The uniform to Alvarez's left fidgeted, clearly chewing on something like a cow with its cud, but unwilling to share with the class.

“Out with it, kid!” Harvey barked, deflating only slightly when he came up against Alvarez's flatly unimpressed look, even as the rookie stared at him with deer-in-headlights eyes, all wide and idealistic; not unlike a certain brash young cop of Harvey's acquaintance, way back in the beginning before the city had stomped up one side of him and down the other like an abusive lover and knocked some of the shine off. With slightly less bite, “ _Today_ would be preferable.”

“...Captain Gordon was meant to be on-shift over an hour ago.”

Harvey felt his blood pressure spike, and briefly debated the merits of tapping that bottle of scotch he remembered stashing at the back of his--well, _Jim's_ , now--filing cabinet.

It was five o'clock somewhere.

_Dammit, Jim. I'm getting too fucking old for this._

+

“The Street Demons were already moving in to pick the bones when Miette relieved me.”

Zsasz’s eyes narrowed. “They don't have the firepower to pull that off.”

Xue Lin folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the doorframe, rifle still slung over her shoulder and leathers grimy with long days on extended recon, bellying across rooftops and sleeping rough. “No. No word on who actually pulled it off, but from the fireworks display--”

“...Valeska.”

Her dark gaze catalogued the colourful map of bites and bruises disappearing beneath Zsasz's tactical blacks and high-necked knit pullover without comment. “It's where I'd lay _my_ money.”

He could feel the cool burn of her gaze as he tucked away his knives, then moved to pull his dark red moto jacket from the closet. “Get some beauty sleep; you're running point with Chess and Yana at 0200.”

“Good hunting.” She inclined her chin in a curt nod, then made herself scarce as silently as the ghost the other girls accused her of being, generally accompanied with threadbare threats of putting a bell on her that few of them would dare even _consider_ following through on, even as a joke.

Zsasz checked his GSRs and shrugged into his shoulder rig, the comforting weight of it settling snugly into place atop the supple leather of his jacket like the truest embrace he would ever know.

_Fucking clowns._

+

His escort having peeled off on her bike with a mocking salute as soon as she had seen him safely to the edge of the Green Zone, Jim waited to be waved through the northeast checkpoint by the officers on sentry duty.

He offered them a brief, hopefully reassuring smile and wished he was only imagining the fact that they looked noticeably jumpier than usual, before steeling himself for whatever fresh hell might have brewed in his absence as he drove on to the station.

A glimpse of Harvey's harried expression as he stepped into the bullpen told him that he had no such luck; something was _definitely_ amiss.

“ _Jim_! Where the hell have you _been_ , man; I was about to send out the cavalry!”

“Sorry.” Jim jogged up the steps, suddenly acutely aware that although he _had_ showered, he was still wearing yesterday's suit. “Overslept.” At least, with all of the midnight oil he had been burning, he was sure to have a change of clothes in his office. And a clean pair of shorts.

Harvey raked Jim with a critical side-eye as he stepped into the office, sharp gaze snagging on the dark smudge on his lapel and the marks on his neck.

“Well, I hope you're feeling _rested_ , ‘cause we got 99 problems and the day ain't even begun.”


	41. After the fire drove out the sparrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _Someone_ had a party,” Rhett mused grimly from her crouch beside one of the many corpses littering the ground, eyeing the scorched flesh of the soldier's face with detachment, though the gloved hand propping the body up to catch the thin daylight slanting through dingy windowpanes laid him back on the ground with more care than might have been expected from a contract killer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This (and the previous chapter) are part of an attempt to narrow the gap between this and show canon (ha), enough so that I can interweave elements from the new season without _too_ much trouble...I have a definite trajectory and endgame in mind for this, but the minor details are constantly evolving, so...
> 
> There is a small nod to s05e04: _Ruins_ in this chapter (it was too good to pass up), and vague blanket spoiler warnings for season 5 still apply. Chapter title taken from the song _Sirens_ by Fleurie.
> 
> Comments are love.

XLI. After the fire drove out the sparrows

 _Flesh and blood and skin and bone_  
_You're looking from the outside in_  
_All you'll see is what you're shown_  
_Flesh and blood and skin and bone_

 _It's par for the course it's a matter of fact_  
_People are all the same_  
_They want to make my business theirs_  
_Slandering my good name_  
_All around my neighbourhood_  
_People trying to say that I ain't no good_  
_Pointing their finger at me and mine_  
_Look at what's hanging on my clothesline_

 _Flesh and blood and skin and bone_  
_What's mine is mine and mine alone_

 _\--Flesh and Bone_ , The Waifs

\+ + +

“ _Someone_ had a party,” Rhett mused grimly from her crouch beside one of the many corpses littering the ground, eyeing the scorched flesh of the soldier's face with detachment, though the gloved hand propping the body up to catch the thin daylight slanting through dingy windowpanes laid him back down with more care than might have been expected from a contract killer.

“ _Big_ party,” Polina concurred, scanning the far end of the street through the scope of her Dragunov.

“Complete with barbecue,” Bekah remarked dryly, surveying the fallen with a hand on her M9 and the flat of a sawbacked machete resting casually against her shoulder, earning an indelicate snort from Polina and a _look_ from Rhett that could have stripped paint.

 _Bite your tongue, heathen, if you can't keep it civil._ The admonishment hung as clearly on the air as it would have if voiced aloud; it was not the first time someone's irreverence had fallen on the wrong side of Rhett's lofty sense of decorum, nor would it be the last.

The only one she let get away with anything was Victor, much to the amusement and consternation of the rest of the girls. And perhaps a _touch_ of good-natured, not-so-secret envy from Bekah, who despite having a longstanding casual _thing_ going with Chess, would _very_ much have liked to get acquainted with Rhett's _good_ side, but just couldn't seem to stop herself from subtly--or _not_ so subtly--baiting the bear every chance she got.

 _“Looks like it's pretty well stripped,”_ Tish remarked over the short wave, _“though they did miss a crate of tinned foodstuffs, and a box of--”_

 _“--Are there any peaches?”_ Zsasz cut in hopefully, to the tune of Miette's background snickers, from the far side of the site.

 _I just watched him put down three. Bowls. Of Rhett's chicken and andouille gumbo, and the better part of a ribeye; how in the hell--_ “V, you can _not_ still be hungry,” Bekah countered incredulously.

 _“...Is that a dare, or a double dare?_ _”_ he deadpanned, after a beat of silence.

“If y'all could cut the chatter, _children_ ,” Rhett interjected before it could escalate, though Bekah thought there _might_ have been the faintest glimmer of amusement beneath the low sweep of that immaculate mascara. “Though if we've got company, I daresay the ship has _sailed_ on the element of surprise.”

“Sorry, mama.” _Not sorry._  
  
+

_“There's nothing here but a bunch of corpses and spent brass.”_

_“Same here; what do you say we--”_

“Hold that thought,” Bekah cut in, passing the torch to Rhett so she could use both hands and the edge of her machete to pry up the edges of a crate that had been half-hidden by dropcloth and a couple of particularly bullet-ridden corpses. _How in the hell did they_ miss _this? Amateurs._ “Hey, V...you know those fifty-cal APIs you came into a while back?”

 _“Yup,”_ he affirmed, drawing the monosyllable out like taffy as he waited patiently for her to elucidate. 

“I think I got a little something that'll brighten your day...maybe even more than that enthusiastic _encore_ Officer Friendly gave you this morning.”

_“...That’s a pretty tall order. And it's Captain, actually.”_

+

 _“_ I’m _sorry; Captain. Friendly.”_

Zsasz tabled a salty response, momentarily distracted by a tangle of papers caught beneath the edge of an overturned bullet-ridden table in what looked to have been a command centre. He crouched to sift through them, pulling anything vaguely important-looking and or legible and tucking it away inside his jacket. Even if they didn't prove of interest to _him_ , the _Boss_ was an absolute magpie when it came to information, and one could always use a little extra credit in the bank where the little bird was concerned.

Straightening, his gaze was drawn to the far wall and several maps of the city that looked not unlike the ones papering the wall above the desk in Jim's office. Well, apart from the blood spatter and bullet holes, and the fact that they were written over with some kind of weird graffiti.

Zsasz stepped over the slumped corpses of a pair of guardsmen to unpin and fold the maps, taking care to keep the bloodier sections to the inside before tucking them neatly alongside the other papers and giving the signal to move on, Miette falling in on his six.

+

“Who needs a man when you've got an AS50 to keep you warm at night.” Tish smirked as she helped Bekah and Miette hoist the last of the crates into the bed of an appropriated pickup.

“ _Amen_ to that,” Rhett replied, watching Zsasz cradle his new ‘toy’ as tenderly as a kitten.

_“You bitches might want to pack up your tea party and get out of there. Looks like someone finally got wind of all the excitement.”_

“Better late than never,” Zsasz mused, regretfully stripping down the anti-materiel rifle into its transit case and signalling for the girls to wrap it up. “Who's on the guestlist?”

_“You've got a wolf pack coming up from the southeast; Lowboyz, by the look of it. And there's a GCPD patrol circling back along the northern perimeter.”_

_And I forgot my party dress._ Zsasz settled astride his bike, the Ducati's powerful engine coming to life between his legs with a finely tuned purr.

“Happy hunting, ladies.” _Watch your asses out there._

_“You too, V; stay evil.”_

Giving the nod to move out, Zsasz tipped a jaunty two-fingered salute at the likeliest rooftop and gunned it, flanking Tish and Miette in the F-150 as Polina rode on ahead. Bekah and Rhett fell into formation around them, taking up point and rearguard like cogs in a well-oiled machine.

_No other way to be._


	42. Will you partake of that last offered cup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _Christ_ , Sunshine; give a man a heart attack, willya?” Alfred abruptly put up his sidearm, doing his best to shake off the jolt of adrenaline and treating the younger man to a selection from his rather diverse portfolio of disapproving stares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Alfred. <3
> 
> Vague spoiler warnings for season 5 apply, though this is still clearly AU as all get-out. Chapter title taken from a line of _The Man Comes Around_ by Johnny Cash.
> 
> Comments are like homemade biscuits and will be consumed forthwith.

XLII. Will you partake of that last offered cup

 _They say, Lady, tell me how bad is it_  
_They grimace and curse_  
_And I say, don't worry, soldier_  
_Things could be a whole lot worse, oh_

 _I hold his body and wonder_  
_Was this comfort that I gave_  
_I felt him drowning in me_  
_He believed he was being saved_

 _So I told him, I am not_  
_The battlefield nurse_  
_I have never saved a soldier_  
_And the war keeps getting worse_

 _There is no kindness to be found here_  
_The nursemaid is a liar, she's_  
_The chauffeur of your hearse_  
_She's got eyes like a battlefield nurse_

 _\--Battlefield Nurse_ , Diane Cluck

\+ + +

Alfred gave a visible start when Zsasz dropped down beside him in the nook he'd staked out for his afternoon of surveilling the lowermost edge of the Dark Zone, chasing threadbare rumours of Jeremiah Valeska.

The assassin abruptly found himself facing down the barrel of Alfred's Browning, raising an eyebrow and holding his hands palm up in a mocking approximation of the universal gesture of surrender. “‘Sup?”

“ _Christ_ , Sunshine; give a man a heart attack, willya?” Alfred abruptly put up his sidearm, doing his best to shake off the jolt of adrenaline and treating the younger man to a selection from his rather diverse portfolio of disapproving stares.

“Sorry,” Zsasz said unrepentantly, lowering his hands. “Saw you up here and figured it'd be _rude_ not to say hello.”

“Just…taking the air, were you?” Alfred eyed him narrowly, a mite put out at finding himself so easily caught off-guard.

“Something like that…” Zsasz scoped Alfred's setup, taking in the military-grade surveillance equipment and matte-finished transit case before raking the man himself with a deliberate once-over. “You?”

The intent behind Zsasz's gaze was as tangible as a caress, derailing Alfred briefly with the temptation of liberties that were not his to take. “Felt like stretching my legs.” He absently marked their similarity of dress, both having traded in their waistcoats and oxfords and kitted out like a pair of Spec-Ops Bobbsey twins in their black TDUs and combat boots.

The strap of Zsasz’s own rifle case shrugged neatly off of his shoulder as he made himself right at home beside Alfred's kit, his back to the building and gaze cast distantly over the blackened skyline beyond the low wall obscuring them from any vantage of a height with or lower than their own.

His dark eyes caught on Alfred’s case, lit with mischief and curiosity. “What're you packing?”

Heat crept up Alfred's neck at the weighted insinuation in Zsasz's tone. “That's a bit forward for a first date, innit?”

“Second, “ Zsasz corrected with a smirk, holding Alfred's gaze in playful challenge. “Show you mine if you show me yours.”

Alfred swallowed, mentally straightening his waistcoat and clearing his throat, taking refuge in propriety even as he found himself impressed by the sheer bloody _cheek_ of him, the little tart. “How's about tea and a biscuit, instead?” He could murder a cuppa himself, suddenly feeling rather parched.

The assassin brightened visibly at the prospect of baked goods. “Did you make these?” he asked, when the butler had furnished them both with a steaming cup of Assam from his thermos and retrieved a small container of hobnobs, two of them disappearing in short order, though Zsasz took time to savour the third.

“What do I look like, Martha bloody Stewart?” Alfred gruffed, masking his pleasure at the rare bird of such open enjoyment of his culinary efforts.

Zsasz grinned, reaching shamelessly for a fourth biscuit. “Mmm...Paul Hollywood, maybe.”

+

“She's a tough kid,” Zsasz offered, the mood having taken an abrupt turn for the darker at the mention of Tabitha’s protégé. _Sometimes it’s enough._

His thoughts drifted toward Polina, the sheer ferocity with which she'd kicked and clawed her way from the purgatory he'd found her in to become one of his _best_ ; a vicious, resilient she-wolf Zsasz was proud to have at his back.

He thought then of the girls he'd found her with, their minds unable to cope with the crucible of their circumstance and staring at him with eyes like the deer he'd clipped one night in his old El Dorado on the drive back to the city from the Van Dahl estate.

His recollection was viscerally crystalline, the copper-hot smell of it still bright on his tongue; the wide, deep hooks of its panicked gaze, aimless with terror as it struggled fruitlessly toward the sanctuary of the treeline on mangled legs, its red-stained pelt steaming in the damp air, fragments of bone glittering in the earthy slick of scarlet left in its wake. He could still feel the brittle grain of its fur against his palms, the straining, graceful tendons of its throat, the heady throb of its pulse as it stammered fitfully within the tender cage of his fingers. The clean-quick give of overextended bone, resonant as a gunshot, his hands, wrists, and knees slick with the tepid afterbirth of the uncoiling silence.

He took a slow sip of tea, rolling it around his mouth to chase the taste of old blood from his teeth as he cut a glance at Alfred's tensely-set profile.

"She is."

... _Sometimes it_ isn't.

+

“You seem...much improved from the last I saw you.”

They sat side by side with their backs to the brickwork, Zsasz having brazened across those scant few inches of distance to press their shoulders together, nursing the dregs of their tea in the companionable stillness of the bluing daylight with the empty biscuit tin lying forgotten between them.

“Careful, Daddy-o,” the assassin deadpanned, “flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Just...you look, well, _well_ , despite,” Alfred gestured vaguely in a way that was meant to encompass the veneer-stripping wolf-eat-wolf realness and elevated levels of crazy that had been set as the new daily baseline, “all of this. Happier.”

Zsasz sobered considerably, chewing Alfred's comment over for a moment. “Maybe,” he allowed cautiously, as though afraid to jinx it, but the truth of it was writ behind his eyes.

“Sorted out those men of yours, then?”

Zsasz contemplated the steam curling from the surface of his Assam, glad of the warmth of as the encroaching chill of evening dogged the heels of the sun slinking slowly toward the horizon.

“It's...complicated.”

_Ain't that the truth._

+

“Thanks for the chat,” Zsasz murmured, cutting Alfred a small, genuine smile, “ _and_ the biscuits. That's two I owe you.”

“Nonsense,” Alfred muttered, distracted by Zsasz's sudden proximity, the scent of gun oil entwined with something sweetbitter and citrus-green briefly overtaking his senses as the assassin moved boldly into his space to buss a quick press of lips to his cheek before rising to his feet in a single, distractingly fluid movement.

“Really,” Zsasz insisted, in a tone that brooked no question, reaching to reshoulder the case containing his stripped-down Lobaev. He hesitated, eyes studying Alfred keenly for several moments, before quietly adding, with a shade less confidence but no mean measure of sincerity, “...Thanks.”


	43. So that the pincers of the scorpion slide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nonplussed, Zsasz took the folder and eyed it curiously before glancing back at the Penguin. “...Now?”
> 
> “No, Victor, _next_ Tuesday.” Oswald's eyes narrowed, before he snapped irritably, “ _Yes_! Now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vague spoiler warnings for season 5 apply (though that's about to get rather specific in a hurry). 
> 
> Chapter title taken from _Gacela of the Dark Death_ by Federico Garcia Lorca, which can be found [here](https://steerforth.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/gacela-of-dark-death/).
> 
> Comments are <3.

XLIII. So that the pincers of the scorpion slide

 _I hate sleeping alone_  
_Terrified with the lights out_  
_I hate living alone_  
_Talking to myself is boring conversation_  
_Me and I are not friends_  
_She is only an acquaintance_  
_I hate dreaming of being alone_  
_'Cause you are never there_  
_Just a shadowy figure with a blank face_  
_Kicking me out of his place_  
_I hate walking alone_  
_I should get a dog or something_  
_I hate eating alone_  
_I hate eating alone_

 _\--Alone/With You_ , Daughter

\+ + +

“Something's gotta give with the ammo situation, Boss. Handloading will do in a pinch, and I've told the girls to save their brass and make every shot count. But if you want to make any major moves, we're going to need more firepower.”

“I've had Penn working on a solution for that, actually." The kingpin sifted through one of the towering stacks on his desk, extracting a folder from the pile and handing it to his enforcer. “Seeing as it's _your_ field of expertise, I would appreciate your input.”

Nonplussed, Zsasz took the folder and eyed it curiously before glancing back at the Penguin. “...Now?”

 _“_ No _,_ Victor, _next_ Tuesday.” Oswald's eyes narrowed, before he snapped irritably, “ _Yes!_ Now!”

Zsasz only raised an eyebrow at the little bird's outburst, before opening the folder and leafing through the contents. 

He frowned thoughtfully as he skimmed over the characteristically grandiose proposal; never one to try anything by half, was he?

 _Not bad, if we can scrape together the manpower_.

Oswald's mouth tightened with impatience as the minutes stretched between them. “... _Well_?”

“Looks good,” Zsasz replied, in that infuriatingly unruffled way of his. He held up the folder. “Can I keep this?” He had a few ideas, but he wanted to run them by Tish, first, and maybe Lil...

The Penguin spread his hands upon the air, wilfully tamping down on his temper; he _knew_ Victor was a man of few words, and took time to process, in direct controversion to his own immediate need for _results_ , though generally whatever insights his enforcer did ultimately offer were from an angle the kingpin might never have considered, and oft proved invaluable. He was _working_ on it. “By all means,” he said, forcing an edged smile.

“Cool. Also--” Zsasz stopped short, torn between overstepping and whatever was clearly eating at him behind that inscrutable professionalism.

“ _Yes_ …?”

“I was thinking maybe you and Martin should move to the citadel.”

Oswald frowned, wondering what might have prompted this shift; he knew Zsasz held an attachment to the place, for more reasons than one. “You want to leave the mansion? I thought it was…”

He didn't dare call it a _home_ ; time and again fate had swiftly disabused him of such notions every time he had even tentatively begun to _think_ as such.

Victor remained as blank as a wall right before the prisoners are lined up in front of it. “...It's just a house.” A house steeped with old ghosts, and memory, and-- “The citadel’s more defensible.”

“Your concern is touching,” Oswald murmured, and though the words were light, the well of feeling behind it ran deep.

“I'm serious, Boss. _Oswald_. If anything happened to you or the kid--”

“...All right. I'll make the arrangements.”

He couldn't quite place the expression on the little bird's face, just that it made something catch queerly behind his breastbone. “Okay.”

\-- _I’d raze the old bitch to the ground_.

+

“I’ve been considering a different approach with Gordon.”

Zsasz paused in connecting Oswald's faint, ghostly freckles into private constellations, then fired off with expected airiness, “You mean like a carrot, as opposed to a cattle prod...?”

 _Something to that effect_. “I know you won't give him up...” Oswald mused, gaze staring to some far point past the draped brocade of the canopy, the gears of that diamond-sharp mind clearly turning over the angles of some much-revisited puzzle, looking for the hidden catch that would yield him his undisputed triumph.

It took Zsasz a moment to respond, tongue thick with the sudden taste of ashes. “Boss... _Sir_ , I--” He'd _thought_ …

It didn't make sense; hadn't the Boss _sent_ Jim to him? With what practically amounted to an engraved invitation? Or had he changed his mind…?

_It's okay if you love Jim, you know._

His tone drew Oswald's attention, pulling the kingpin from his Machiavellian contemplation of of the bedhangings. Those dark eyes cut Oswald to the bone, and he found himself rewinding his own words, looking for a clue to whatever tripwire he had inadvertently stumbled into; for once, he hadn't _actually_ been striking for blood.

“I thought--you said it was _okay_. If...you want me to--”

A small, cool hand stilled Zsasz's words, as Oswald read the sweetbitter truth from his gaze: that Zsasz would cleanly carve the beating heart from his own chest, should Oswald only ask for it, and completely discount the cost even as he quietly bled out.

“I was thinking more in terms of...inviting him to our bed,” Oswald ventured carefully, with uncommon gentleness.

Victor stilled, gears grinding to an abrupt and jarring halt. ... _What_.

“I just...I want you to be happy.” Oswald's nerves were beginning to show at the edges.  He was _trying,_ to not hold on too tightly, find the work-around, _not_ make the same mistakes he had before, with... “I know _he_ makes you happy.”

Zsasz's throat went tight. “ _You_ make me happy, Boss--”

“Shh. I’m not fishing.” Not at the moment, at any rate. “I just...need to _know_.”

Zsasz swallowed against the knot in his throat, wondering how he'd managed to get himself so firmly wedged between a bossy, possessive crimelord and a stubborn, possessive cop, like a set of purposely mismatched bookends.

 _Don't front; that's_ completely _your type_ , an irritating inner voice insinuated, sounding a hell of a lot like Bekah, _and you’re_ into _it_. He supposed that made him the dog-eared stack of weapons manuals, fetish mags, and _The Joy of Baking_ propped incongruously between them, right next to the Hummel figurines and homemade grenades. “...Know what?”

The straight-razor gleam in Oswald's gaze was both terrifying and thrilling, unpicking Zsasz as neatly as a wrapped package, and sparing the paper. “ _Everything_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized, Os and Z's interactions are like 99% pillow talk (so I _tried_ to keep them with their clothes on and out of the bedroom for like...half of this section). *amused* 
> 
> It's where all the _actual_ governance/plotting happens anyway, right?


	44. For always roaming with a hungry heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I came here with an offer...you don't want to hear me out, that's cool; I'm sure I can find other _takers_ …” Zsasz regarded them coolly, thumbs hooked neatly beside his holstered GSRs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler warnings for s05e01: _Year Zero_ apply, with some dialogue drawn directly from the episode. Vague blanket spoiler warnings for the general tone/theme of season 5 as well, though this is still AU AF.
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of Tennyson's _Ulysses_.
> 
> Comments are love.

XLIV. For always roaming with a hungry heart

 _And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder._  
_One of the four beasts saying, "Come and see."_  
_And I saw, and behold a white horse_

 _There's a man going around taking names_  
_And he decides who to free and who to blame_  
_Everybody won't be treated all the same_  
_There'll be a golden ladder reaching down_  
_When the man comes around_  
_The hairs on your arm will stand up_  
_At the terror in each sip and in each sup_  
_Will you partake of that last offered cup_  
_Or disappear into the potter's ground_  
_When the man comes around_

 _\--The Man Comes Around_ , Johnny Cash

\+ + +

“Hey, ladies. How's tricks?”

“Victor. You here of your own accord, or running errands for your _boss_?” There was something ugly underlining Tabitha’s tone, though Barbara’s gaze was keen. _No pun intended._

“I came here with an offer...you don't want to hear me out, that's cool; I'm sure I can find other _takers_ …” Zsasz regarded them coolly, thumbs hooked neatly beside his holstered GSRs.

“What's the offer?” Barbara held up a hand to forestall her partner's kvetching, at least until Zsasz had said his piece.

That was Barb; _business_ , first and foremost. “A thousand nine-mil rounds, in exchange for a thousand pounds of steak.”

“What is it, date night?”

Zsasz's smile was wolfish, and entirely _smug_. “Something like that.”

+

_“Victor, are you trying to bribe me with sexual favours into letting you torture more people?”_

_Zsasz blinked, expression disarmingly open. “Of course not, Boss. That would be unprofessional.”_ And I don't _try._

Like butter wouldn't melt _. Oswald snorted in disbelief, glancing down to catch the white edge of the unrepentant grin Zsasz had turned against his collarbone. ‘_ Of course not.’ Indeed _. He raised the hand of the arm not gone entirely numb beneath Zsasz's weight to land a stinging swat on the upper edge of his ass, ignoring Zsasz's resultant, entirely distracting hum of satisfaction. “I_ believe _I’ve already expressed my sentiments toward you calling me ‘boss' when we're like this.”_

 _“Can I call you_ Sir _?” Zsasz's dark eyes gleamed at him impishly, the curve of his mouth equal parts wicked and eager._

 _Oswald's felt his lips curl despite himself._ Incorrigible _. “Only if you behave.”_

 _“I'll_ try _. Sir.”_

 _“Hm. Speaking of which, I_ do _have a task for you.”_

_Seeing how Zsasz's eyes lit with interest, Oswald drew his thumb over the bitten curve of that smirking mouth, before drawing Zsasz up to him for a brief, sharp kiss. “Nothing so delightful, I'm afraid,” he murmured regretfully, capturing a wandering hand before it could grow too bold. “But necessary.”_

_The enforcer tilted his head, expression considering. “_ Right _now?” He dropped a seemingly absent kiss on Oswald's breastbone, but the kingpin could read_ intent _writ behind those sharp dark eyes._

_“...Not necessarily,” Oswald replied warily, “though I would prefer--” His voice broke on a startled gasp as Zsasz's teeth caught on the lowermost curve of his ribcage, before soothing the roughness with a tender press of lips._

_He felt Zsasz smile against his skin. “On it, Boss,” he murmured, leaving another small, stinging bite, mindful of Oswald's bad leg as he shifted down the bed and set his teeth against Oswald's hipbone. “Give me ten minutes.”_

+

“Tell your _boss_ he's going to regret giving me this,” Tabitha growled, chambering the sample round Penn had presented, retribution writ in her eyes.

“ _Careful_ , Tabby.” Zsasz squared off with her across the room, their gazes locked like two tigers prowling on opposite sides of a cage while Penn visibly quailed beside him at the rapidly escalating potential for violence tightening the air.

“Tabby's still sore about Penguin killing Butch right in front of her,” Barbara interjected, knifing through the tension, “So...better make it two thousand rounds.”

Watching her other half break the standoff with Zsasz to cut her a _look_ before storming out in disgust, Barbara fixed the enforcer with an edged smile, “Or better yet, _three_.”


	45. And makes one little room an everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Isn't that a bit overkill, Boss?” Zsasz asked, slacks pulled up but left undone as he stood half in, half out of the bathroom, shoulder propped lightly against the doorway as he multitasked voicing his concerns and brushing his teeth. He paused to spit, rinsing his mouth out and splashing some water on his face before reaching for his shirt. “A thousand pounds of steak?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _This_ kid. *cuddles little murder-baby Martin*
> 
> Vague blanket spoilers for season 5 of _Gotham_. Chapter title taken from a line of _The Good-Morrow_ by John Donne.
> 
> Comments are love.

XLV. And makes one little room an everywhere

_Now I'm sewing, sewing, sewing medicine bundles_   
_With grass threads and porcupine quills_   
_And I'm filling them up with galaxy beams_   
_And with all the stars you've snuffed_   
_And all the ghosts you've been_   
_And with every shape you've morphed_   
_And all the trees you've stumped_   
_And I'm filling them up with all the blood_   
_Your heart has pumped and pumped_   
_And with all of the love that your mouth has rushed_   
_With all of the voices that your ears have rung_   
_And with all of the life that your dirt has sprung_

_\--Bundles_ , Mariee Sioux

\+ + +

“Hey, buddy, where do you want this one?” Zsasz raised an eyebrow as he hefted one of the boxes that they had packed together, glancing around what had likely been an office or small conference room before Oswald's takeover of City Hall. The utilitarian office furniture had been switched out for the heavy lines of a darkly ornate antique bedroom set and desk that were entirely in line with Oswald's taste, the blinds overlaid with drapes to match the bedclothes, the floors spread with an ornate jewel-toned rug, all in an effort to make it more livable, but it still felt vaguely like an office masquerading as something it was not.

Martin just shrugged, taking in what was to be his new digs with a glum cast to his face.

Zsasz frowned, setting the box aside and moving to crouch down so he could face the boy on his own level. “...What's up, kiddo?”

Martin's expression was fraught as he clearly debated the merits of sharing whatever was eating at him.

“Hey. You can talk to me, little man. Whatever it is, no judgments, okay?”

After long moments of internal debate, Martin put pen to paper. _How long do we have to stay here?_

“I don't know, a while, I guess? Until the city is retaken, maybe, or shit goes sideways and the Boss has to pull up stakes again.”

Martin's frown deepened, and he scribbled furiously. _When can we go home?_

It took Zsasz a moment to parse where that might even be, mentally leafing through all the places the kid had been in the interim. Carefully, “You mean your foster family?” At an emphatic head shake to the negative, Zsasz tilted his head, considering. “...the Van Dahl estate? Not for a while, babe. Sorry.”

_Are you going to stay here too?_

“Sometimes... But if I'm not here, one of the girls will be, okay?”

Martin stared at him for long moments, seemingly unconvinced, but finally nodded.

Zsasz set a hand on the boy's shoulder, giving a small squeeze. “Let's get you unpacked, huh?”

+

_“Isn't that a bit overkill, Boss?” Zsasz asked, slacks pulled up but left undone as he stood half in, half out of the bathroom, shoulder propped lightly against the doorway as he multitasked voicing his concerns and brushing his teeth. He paused to spit, rinsing his mouth out and splashing some water on his face before reaching for his shirt. “A thousand pounds of steak?”_

_“Since that last stunt from the_ other _Valeska, my contacts on the mainland have gone alarmingly silent... According to my sources at the GCPD, the_ powers that be _have declared Gotham a blackout zone while some_ committee _debates the merits of jeopardizing more precious military assets reestablishing their presence in the city.” Oswald had pulled on a jade-toned silk brocade dressing gown and was propped up against the headboard, attending to a short stack of papers from his bedside table. “In the meantime, Barbara has neatly cornered the black market on provisions, and I for one would prefer not to starve in the interim.”_

 _“Even if it means giving Tabby the means to come after you? What happened with Butch…she's not gonna let it go.”_ I wouldn't. _Zsasz finished doing up his buttons, tucking in the tails and threading his belt smoothly through the loops of his pants even as his gaze retraced his steps from earlier, hunting for his boots._

 _“I’m not worried about Tabitha Galavan,” Oswald scoffed. “She will be dealt with at a time of my choosing. In the meantime,_ please _continue to see to it that my interests are looked after.”_

_Zsasz ‘s mouth tightened at Oswald's dismissal of Tabitha’s vendetta as he pulled tight his laces and tucked away his boot knife. “...Sure thing, Boss.”_

+

Zsasz rifled through a box containing a selection of records and a lovingly maintained heirloom gramophone player that had previously graced one of the smaller parlours in the Falcone mansion. The player he set up on top of a small table, cranking it up with care and setting an old Sinatra pressing to playing while they unpacked, bobbing along absently to the familiar opening bars of _I've Got You Under My Skin_ as he set Martin's impressive accumulation of books to rights on an empty built-in bookshelf.

“Sinatra was one of the old man's favourites,” he commented, glancing at Martin as the boy curiously examined the record sleeve, then set it aside to further explore the contents of the box of records. A small, bittersweet smile played at the edges of the assassin's mouth. “Taught me to cut a rug to old blue eyes when I was just coming up; said it was an important skill I'd be glad of later in life.”

Zsasz neatly slotted _The Marvelous Land of Oz_ in between its predecessor and several C. S. Lewis titles, pausing to frown thoughtfully at a dogeared and clearly much-loved copy of Neil Gaiman's _Coraline_ before shelving it with the others.

“He wasn't wrong; dancing skills are a definite plus at parties, and for attracting partners of any gender…” He trailed off, considering. “Also, smelling good helps. Or at least not smelling _bad_. Good hygiene is definitely high on the checklist.”

Martin just drew a huge question mark in his notebook, turning it to Zsasz with a frown.

“Not of paramount concern to you at the moment, I know. But one day it might be. Or not. You don't _have_ to be into anybody if that's not your jam.” He set the empty box aside and reached for another one helpfully labeled ‘books’ in Martin's distinctive scrawl, hefting it up onto the edge of the desk and pulling out more stacks to be shelved, an eclectic mixture of swank leatherbound volumes, pristine hardcovers, and tatty trade paperbacks. “Either way, I've got your back, kid.”

Martin processed this for some moments. Just when Zsasz thought the subject had been dropped, the boy began writing furiously in his little notebook.

_Was that how you attracted Oswald and the policeman?_

“...Huh?”

 _Dancing_.

Zsasz hedged. “Well...not exactly?” _Shit_.

_Then smell?_

“Uh…” Zsasz suddenly took the measure of the corner he had neatly backed himself into. “...could be? Or...maybe just a whole lot of, uh, mutual professional respect.” _Get real, Zsasz._ “I don't know, really; you might have to ask them. When you're way, _way_ older, so your pop doesn't skin me.”

When Martin began to look alarmed, he hastened to clarify, “Not _actually_ … Figure of speech, kiddo. It just means he'll be pissed.”

 _Or not._ The little bird always _was_ quick with a blade.


	46. Because it calmly disdains to destroy us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _Lookee_ here boys,” crowed the chief asshole, grandstanding for all he was worth. “I'll tell you what. You give me my workers back, and I'll let you and your partner go.”
> 
> Harvey watched his partner's jaw twitch out of the corner of his eye, firming his grip on his own sidearm despite his still-clammy palms from that freaking house of horrors. _Yeah, snowball in the Sahara’s chance of that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have said it, but it bears repeating: I <3 Harvey.
> 
> This installment has been in nearly finished state for _days_ , I just couldn't steal the time to tie it up and give it the critical thrice-over and spit and polish it deserves. The next chapter or two should come more quickly; they're mostly roughed out, it's just a matter of neatening up the edges and bridging them more tidily with this one.
> 
> Spoilers for s05e03: _Trespassers_ , with dialogue drawn directly from the episode. Still AU, but running parallel-ish to the course of the show, for _now_...
> 
> Chapter title taken from a line of _The Duino Elegies_ by Rainer Maria Rilke, which can be found [here](https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Rilke.php#anchor_Toc509812215).
> 
> Comments are love.

 XLVI. Because it calmly disdains to destroy us

 _O Lord, O Lord, what have I done?_  
_I’ve fallen in love with a man on the run_  
_O Lord, O Lord, I’m begging you, please_  
_Don’t take that sinner from me_  
_Oh, don’t take that sinner from me_

 _O Lord, O Lord, what do I do_  
_I’ve fallen for someone who’s nothing like you_  
_He’s raised on the edge of the devil’s backbone_  
_Oh, I just wanna take him home_  
_Oh, I just wanna take him home_

 _\--The Devil's Backbone_ , The Civil Wars

\+ + +

“How many bullets you got left?” Harvey asked, as they stepped out of Hotel Hell and rounded the bumper of an abandoned sedan, the trio of rescued urchins in tow.

“Two,” came Jim's grim answer, as he ducked beneath the steering wheel of aforementioned sedan to pry loose the casing around the steering column with his pocketknife.

Harvey sighted down the barrel of his own disappointingly light service weapon as he cased the empty street with spidey-senses a-tingling, covering Jim's six while his partner attempted to hotwire them a way the hell out of dodge.

Just as the old girl's engine was giving some signs of turning over, a jacked-up pickup full of the same scumbags they'd lifted the kids off of blocked the end of the street, flanked by a couple of other war-wagons that looked fresh from the _Thunderdome_. He felt rather than saw Jim fall in beside him, the pair of them watching like a couple of Eastwoods as the Soothsayers spread out into the street, his partner sighting down the barrel of his P226 as his arm came up into line with Harvey's.

“ _Lookee_ here boys,” crowed the chief asshole, grandstanding for all he was worth. “I'll tell you what. You give me my workers back, and I'll let you and your partner go.”

Harvey watched his partner's jaw twitch out of the corner of his eye, firming his grip on his own sidearm despite his still-clammy palms from that freaking house of horrors. _Yeah, snowball in the Sahara’s chance of that._

“I'm just kidding; of course I'm not gonna do that. I'm going to _kill you all_!”

 _If only he'd get_ on _with it and stop flapping his jaw, already,_ Harvey groused inwardly; why in the hell hadn't he retired to become a goat farmer, again?

The Soothsayers fanned out across the street, hands tightening on their weapons in readiness to do as their boss commanded, but a woman's voice cut in on the scene just as those fingers were itching tight on their triggers.

“Wait just a minute, _please_.” A statuesque twentysomething with her face painted like a sugar skull swept up the opposite end of the street, her ornate coat flaring behind her like a cape. “They're _mine_.”

 _Well ain't that just fucking great_ , Harvey thought sourly, feeling like a bystander caught between Kurt Russell and the red-sashed villain at the tail end of _Tombstone_ , not entirely sure where he should be pointing his gun. All they needed now was Doc Holliday and his lady.

+

Jim glanced between the rock and the hard place they'd once again found themselves caught between. _It must be Tuesday_ , he thought dryly, wondering when in the hell he was entitled to a _break_. His P226 remained steady in his uninjured hand as he sized up the opposition, despite not having seen the softer side of his pillow in what felt like weeks.

“Put it down, knucklehead,” the chief Soothsayer taunted, “you two clowns ain't got a single bullet between you.”

“But _we_ do,” a familiar voice sing-songed cheerily.  Jim's head whipped around in shock in time to see Zsasz drop from a fire escape onto the broad hood of a vandalized Continental, Lilija and Rhett dropping down onto the windowless Cutlass Supreme beside it even as a telltale flicker drew Jim's eyes involuntarily upward to where Xue Lin was sighting down the scope of her M40A5 over the uppermost edge of the building.

His gaze snapped back to Zsasz as the assassin stepped up and over the roof of the Lincoln, pausing briefly atop the trunk with thumbs hooked casually in the straps of his shoulder-rig as he surveyed the situation with his usual air of breezy nonchalance. “ _Hello_ ; for those of you that don't know me, _I'm_ Victor Zsasz.”

Those dark eyes gleamed with amusement as realization and panic dawned on the faces of the assembled riffraff, pale mouth curving in a way Jim should _not_ have found so damnably attractive.

Zsasz dropped to the pavement, landing lightly on the balls of his feet and stepping blithely into the line of fire. Seemingly out of nowhere, Polina had stepped around the back of the Lincoln to fall in at his left elbow, her stony expression and dead eyes a far cry from the smirking girl Jim had previously met under far more embarassing circumstances. She wore a sleeveless variant on the usual form-fitting combat leathers, beneath an open cropped motorcycle vest baring exquisitely detailed full-sleeve tattoos with intricate floral motifs on one arm and a primordial iceforest on the other. Her extensive ink extended up past the vest and down beneath the spike-studded gloves covering the deceptively delicate hands keeping that Dragunov up and unwaveringly trained on the Soothsayers who actively had Jim and company in their sights.

Zsasz had foregone his customary blazer and topcoat for an ankle-length leather trench, beneath which the narrow curve of his waist was further accentuated by what Jim belatedly realized was a _corset_ in place of the usual vest, fronted with a heavy row of deliberately dulled steel buckles, the sheer number of which drove Jim briefly to distraction even as he puzzled at the heavy, nonreflective metal ornamentation near the uppermost edge of the garment. “ _Hi_ , Jim! Harvey,” he added, with a slow curl to his lips that had Harvey narrowing his eyes and fighting the urge to say something that would get him decked again; now was _not_ the time.

“Hello, Victor. Fancy meeting you here,” Jim deadpanned, masking how irrationally glad he was to see the pale hit-for-hire.

Zsasz’s eyes warmed for the briefest of moments, then abruptly _sharpened_. His voice went low, edged with that fell _something_ that never failed to set a chill in Jim's bones. “Fancy that.”

Jim only realized that what he had initially mistaken for oddly large decorative studs were in fact the hilts of half a dozen or so slim blades neatly sheathed atop the panels of the corset when the Soothsayer's leader was choking on his own blood with a hand on his weapon and a throwing knife in his throat, even as the GSR in Zsasz's other hand cleanly dropped the woman in the skull facepaint opposite with a headshot.

 _So much for that_.

He and Harvey flattened the kids against the side of the car he'd been attempting to hotwire, taking what cover they could behind the half-open door as gunfire erupted around them.

The ensuing firefight was over fairly quickly, Zsasz and his cohort mopping up the two gangs with relative ease, their disadvantage in numbers more than made up for with superior skill and firepower. Deserters were summarily dispatched with brutal efficiency, this new, cruel future holding no room in it for loose ends.

Jim wondered absently what was _wrong_ with him, watching Zsasz step silently amongst the fallen like an angel of death in the aftermath, that the sight of the assassin with a streak of arterial spray standing bright against his cheek, jacket pooling darkly around him on the pavement as he coolly crouched to pocket spent casings and strip a body of its armaments while all around them his women did the same was one of the most viscerally arresting things Jim had ever seen.

Then Zsasz glanced up, his eyes catching Jim's and his lips curving into a smile that hit the detective like a punch to the solar plexus. It stole the breath from his lungs, made his heart hammer erratically in its brittle cage.  _Damn_.  He was so completely _screwed_. 

 _Don't you fucking die on me_ , Jim thought with sudden, base irrationality, wishing desperately that he had the luxury of openness, of being able to do as was his wont and haul Zsasz close, map the supple lines of the stiffened leather caging his ribs, tongue the blood from his cheek...steal a sip of the deadly vitality hovering silent as a song above the parted, smiling shape of his lips.

When Jim came back to himself, he found Harvey giving him an odd, pinched look, mouth half-open in that particularly annoyed way that meant his partner had been repeating himself, possibly more than once.

“ _Sorry_ , you were saying?”

+

“Nice digs,” Zsasz commented, glancing around as they passed through the gates of Haven. He had dismissed Xue Lin when they hit the Green Zone’s northern checkpoint, and left Rhett behind the wheel of the hotwired Lincoln, but Lilija and Polina were still covering his six, keenly assessing their surroundings as they walked into the midst of the refugees and found themselves flanked by the scruffy-looking dregs of Gotham's finest.

“Everyone stand _down_ ,” Jim said, stepping into the line of fire with hands raised as his officers drew down on the trio of contract killers and were answered by the women's weapons coming up, stayed only by the gloved fist Zsasz raised in a silent gesture to _hold_.

“ _Hey_ , Alvarez,” Zsasz called out cheerily as the detective in question stepped through the wall of blue to greet Jim and Harvey, followed closely by an excited if harried-looking Lucius Fox. “You wanna play a little good-cop bad-cop? Handcuffs...strip search? For _old times_ ’ sake?”

Alvarez cut Zsasz a flat stare, then turned his gaze to Jim and Harvey. “Good to see you guys back in one piece.”

“Thank tall, pale, and trigger-happy here, and his merry widows of Windsor,” Harvey groused with grudging respect, “for pulling our fat out of the fire at the most _opportune_ moment.”

“Seriously?” Lucius interjected.

“Yeah, well, apparently it's not who you _know_ \--”

Jim clapped a hand tightly on his partner's shoulder, forcibly steering the conversation away from whatever bomb Harvey was about to drop, “What've you got for me, Lucius?”

When Jim had gotten up to speed on Haven's progress and the highlights of what had transpired at the GCPD in his absence, he sought out Zsasz. 

The mercenary in question was just outside the gates, perched idly on the hood of the graffitied Continental with Polina stretched out like a cat sunning itself beside him, while Rhett and Lilija apparently passed the time chatting up the pair of officers on gate duty. And _Harvey_.

“Will you _quit_ flirting with Alvarez?” Jim muttered, when Zsasz straightened, expression brightening upon seeing him.

“Aww, c'mon Jim, it's just a little harmless _fun_ ….besides, he's _handsome_.”

“I mean it, Victor.”

Zsasz grinned unrepentantly at him. “ _Make_ me.”

Jim stepped aggressively into Zsasz's space, steeling himself as the assassin's dark eyes gleamed with _interest_. Jim was peripherally aware of Harvey's eyes lifting from Rhett's cleavage to turn in their direction, knowing well the weight of his partner's judging stare, particularly when it was burning a hole between his shoulder blades. Still, he could not stop himself from hooking a couple of fingers in the top line of the corset, testing the give of the stiff, boned leather. “What _is_ this?”

“Leather, steel, and kevlar-silk bi-weave. Why, you want one? I’m sure she could make one in GCPD blue if I asked _nicely_ …”

Jim wanted to smooth his palms along the unforgiving lines of the boning and the suppleness of the leather between, feel the hard edges of Zsasz's throwing knives press marks into his torso as he erased the charged distance between them. Instead, he took a regretful step back, dropping his hand and giving himself some much needed space to breathe. “Thanks for saving our asses out there.”

“Don't mention it,” Zsasz replied, with an easy sincerity that Jim found particularly flooring.

Seemingly unaware of Jim's inner turmoil, Zsasz pulled a crisply folded square of vellum and a spare clip of 9mm ammo from the deep pockets of his coat, tucking them neatly into into the inner pocket of Jim’s jacket then straightening the detective's lapels just for the excuse of keeping hands on him. “Come to the Citadel. Boss wants to see you.”

“Any particular reason why?”

The faint upturn at the edges of Zsasz's mouth was infuriatingly inscrutable as he hooked his chin at his girls, signaling that it was time to move out. “Maybe.”

“If you hadn't noticed, I've kinda got my hands _full_ \--”

“--being the saviour of the people, yeah. Bang up job; you've even got some of Oswald's people tempted to come and hold hands by the campfire.  My compliments to Lucius, by the way; the place looks _great_.”  _Very...Third World-chic._

“That’s not exactly--”

“Which is all the more reason to take a break,” Zsasz cut in smoothly, before Jim could finish his sentence. “Rest on your _big damn hero_ laurels a little; they must weigh a _ton_."

 _You've no idea_ , Jim thought, wistfully, even as Zsasz pressed on, patting Jim on the chest and then stepping back, as though it was all a done deal.

"Try not to be too late; you know how he gets.”


	47. Ere the season of passion forget us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “... _Sir_?” A circumspect knock sounded upon the heavy wooden door.
> 
> “Yes?” Oswald didn't shift his gaze from the mirror, in the process of getting the knot on his tie just _so_. It was a deep plum brocade, worked through with black and subtle hints of red that flickered to life when the textured lustre of the silk caught the light.
> 
> “Det--Captain Gordon is downstairs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy V-day, my loves. Enjoy a little painplay/bloodplay/Machiavellian Oswald. Going to try to have the next part up sometime tomorrow, but it needs a _little_ bit of going over, so don't quote me on that.
> 
> Vague blanket spoiler warnings for _Gotham_ season 5; still very much AU. 
> 
> Chapter title from _The falling of the leaves_ by W.B. Yeats which can be found [here](http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/the_falling_of_the_leaves.html).
> 
> Comments are all of the love. <3

XLVII. Ere the season of passion forget us

 _Till Armageddon, no salaam, no shalom_  
_Then the father hen will call his chickens home_  
_The wise man will bow down before the throne_  
_And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns_  
_When the man comes around_  
_Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still_  
_Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still_  
_Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still_  
_Listen to the words long written down_  
_When the man comes around_

 _\--The Man Comes Around,_ Johnny Cash

\+ + +

 _“You should_ not _have tipped your hand like that,” Oswald admonished, trailing the tip of the boxcutter diagonally across the angular wing of Zsasz's shoulderblade, then down along the delicate ridges of his vertebrae, eliciting a full body shudder._

 _“Bullock already knows,” Zsasz countered, breath catching in his throat as the bladepoint was set briefly against his ribcage with slowly increasing pressure, part of him delighting in the tease and another part of him wishing the little bird would just get_ on _with it, already. “He, ah, caught us once. At Jim's. “_

Did he, now? _Oswald's green eyes were sharper than the blade he wielded, stomach twisting with a strange blend of possessiveness and curiosity. “...And how did that make you feel?”_

 _“I, it was--I felt."_ Powerful _. "Like... like he_ saw _.”_

 _Like it was_ real _; like something he could_ keep _._

_The tip of Oswald's tongue darted along one of the superficial scratches he had left, distracting Zsasz from the sudden heat in his eyes, right before sharp teeth caught the edge of the enforcer’s scapula and left his eyes burning for an altogether different reason._

_Blinking rapidly, Zsasz felt the tip of the boxcutter stop beneath the shoulderblade that was currently throbbing so pleasantly with the imprint of those teeth, the blade setting against his skin with an_ intent _that practically had him purring with anticipation._

_Unbound hands remaining unwaveringly set where the Boss had placed them, his fingers flexed against the duvet as he arched upwards just to feel the press of Oswald's palm flattening decisively against the small of his spine, sharp nails pricking deliciously in warning before the blade bit downward with deliberate slowness._

_Exhaling a shaky breath, he grasped for his voice, toes curling at the sweetsharp burn and ensuing rush of endorphins. “..._ One _.”_

+

“... _Sir_?” A circumspect knock sounded upon the heavy wooden door.

“Yes?” Oswald didn't shift his gaze from the mirror, in the process of getting the knot on his tie just _so_. It was a deep plum brocade, worked through with black and subtle hints of red that flickered to life when the textured lustre of the silk caught the light.

“Det--Captain Gordon is downstairs.”

The kingpin smoothed his waistcoat, adjusted his plum and scarlet pocket square.  Distantly he could hear the quiet telltales of his enforcer tending to his ablutions through the door to the bath.  _Perfect_. “Excellent. Show him up.”

“Sir--perhaps your _office_ \--”

“Here. _Now_ , please.”

+

_“So, did you deliver my message?”_

_“Mmmhm... Yes,” Zsasz answered belatedly, arching into the fingertips that pressed warningly into the fresh cluster of hatchmarks on his shoulder, right below the bitemark, where the strap of his shoulder-rig would catch ever so distractingly later._

_“..._ And _?”_

_“He's coming.”_

_“You're_ sure _?” Oswald pressed, fingers dancing around the edges of the imprint of his teeth, pricking tenderly at it with his nails, enjoying the shift of muscle beneath alabaster skin as his enforcer shivered at the elusive promise of pain._

 _Zsasz forced himself to focus, sifting through his earlier interactions with Jim.  He recalled the hot weight of the detective's stare, the tease of fingers darting beneath the upper edge of the corset, the low wanton stretch of tension as they stood toe-to-toe with all those_ eyes _upon them._ Hell, yes.

_“...He'll be here.”_

 


	48. Don't ask me to explain for I do not know why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“...How much should I hurt you?” Jim ventured dubiously._
> 
> _“Until I can't tell you to stop,” Zsasz purred, despite the narrowing of Oswald's pale, watchful gaze, the moue of disapproval twisting his finely drawn mouth._
> 
>  _“_ I'll _tell you when to stop,” the kingpin asserted with quiet steel in his tone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows directly-ish on the heels of the next chapter. This is where the relationship lines get _real_ blurry, folks. Just to be safe, this chapter contains voyeurism, consensual infidelity spilling over into polyamory, murky power dynamics, jealousy, possessiveness, unsafe attitudes toward pain (*side-eyes Zsasz*)...all kinds of fun stuff alluded to in this chapter.
> 
> And bonus Harvey, because I <3 him.
> 
> Vague blanket spoiler warnings for season 5 of _Gotham_ , still AU AF, you know the drill. Chapter title taken from a line of _Rose & Thorn_ by Alela Diane.
> 
> Comments are love.

XLVII. Don't ask me to explain for I do not know why

 _And if I touch your plane as a beast in the barn_  
_To siphon its heat and in that way keep warm_  
_Warm and slow and gentle and sweet_

 _If I move to you to siphon your heat_  
_Will I feel you_  
_Giving it simply to me_  
_Effortless, and silently_

 _Or will I be read through the glass of mistrust_  
_Like men_  
_Who make passes when drunk in disgust_  
_Revealing the captive_  
_They've kept up their need_  
_A horrible flower_  
_A beautiful seed_

 _Who would not recoil_  
_From this face off_

- _-A Beast in a Barn_ , Diane Cluck

\+ + +

“ _Both_ of them?” Harvey burst out, looking completely scandalised. “At the same _time_?!” He looked like he was about to break his brain trying to work out the logistics of that one, and coming up empty.

+

_The assassin watched through a delicious haze of pain and endorphins as Jim and Oswald squared off across the bed. He was reminded of an episode of one of the nature specials Polina was so fond of watching, where a juvenile cheetah had successfully brought down its first solo kill, and contentedly glutted itself on the spoils until a curious hyena had come sniffing around._

_Despite his seemingly fragile stature, the little bird was one of the most formidable predators Zsasz had ever bedded; what he lacked in physical prowess, he more than made up for creativity and ruthlessness, the gears of that cunning mind contantly turning, pale eyes always watching, cataloguing, assessing. Where to apply only the most delicate pressure and where to set his_ teeth _to achieve the desired result; as much a tactician in bed as he was out of it._

_Despite knowing better, Jim had time and again underestimated him, only to rue it bitterly. And Jim was a worthy opponent in his own right, not only having the physical advantage, but able to think on his feet and possessed of keen instincts, when he chose to listen to them._

_Seeing how the pair of them fared on this new field of engagement would be...interesting._

_Stretching just to savour the burn of newblooming bruises and tiny, freshly lit hurts coming to life, Zsasz propped his cheek against his palm and appropriated a bit more of Oswald's stupidly luxurious duvet, settling in to watch the fireworks._

+

Face flaming, Jim protested, “Not--exactly,” with an expression suggesting he wished he was any place else. Having _any_ other conversation. “I mean, _yes_ , but…it just kind of...happened,” he finished lamely.

+

_“...How much should I hurt you?” Jim ventured dubiously._

_“Until I can't tell you to stop,” Zsasz purred, despite the narrowing of Oswald's pale, watchful gaze, the moue of disapproval twisting his finely drawn mouth._

_“_ I'll _tell you when to stop,” the kingpin asserted with quiet steel in his tone. His glacial gaze had gone as opaque as Zsasz's usually was, though there was residual colour in his cheeks as he rose from the chair where he had been content to sit out the first round, nursing his wine and watching with rapt attention as Jim had followed Zsasz down onto the fancifully appointed bed and taken him apart, taking Oswald's challenge between his teeth and running with it._

_Jim, for his part, had paled beneath his golden boy tan and swallowed against a blend of nerves and anticipation, steeling himself._

+

“How in the circumstances of _ever_ does something like that just _happen_?” Harvey flat-out _stared_ at him, not even able to muster a colourfully worded aside.

Jim swallowed, trying to think of a way to frame it that didn't sound _completely crazy. “Well…”_

+

_The kingpin settled back into his chair with the self-possession of a rajah, the glass of wine in his gloved hand gleaming like blood in the low lamplight._

_Zsasz stood near the foot of the bed, skin still wearing the faintest flush from his recent shower. There was something undone about him despite being almost entirely covered, dark oxford buttoned to the throat and slacks neatly pressed. Perhaps it was the suspenders hanging loosely around his narrow hips, perhaps the fact that his feet were bare, white skin gleaming bright as bone against the dark pile of the antique carpet. Or perhaps it was something in his expression, which for all of its customary, professional blankness seemed lit from within with some fierce, fight-or-flight anticipation, dark gaze shifting between Jim and Oswald like a bystander at a duel, waiting keenly for the first shot to be fired._

_“I want you to make love to him,” Oswald said, when the tension had overwound itself like an ill-used clock, “the way you would if there was no one else here.”_ The way you would if you could never touch him again, like there was bullet waiting for you at the end of it.

Like it was the _last_ time.

_Taking exception to the little bird's phrasing, Zsasz opened his mouth to protest, only for the words to be stilled on his lips by the gesture of a gloved hand as surely as they would have been by a touch._

_Jim's gaze sparked off Oswald's, something flaring to life in him at the thrown gauntlet, the_ challenge _. Both of the words themselves, and the easy, absolute mastery implied in the way in which the kingpin called Zsasz to heel with a gesture. He found himself torn between pride and curiosity, wondering darkly how far Zsasz would_ obey _; where his hard lines were and what he would permit without question._

_Weighing his options, Jim hesitated, then stepped decisively away from the door.  He moved into Zsasz's space and caught the edge of Zsasz's jaw with his fingertips._

_“There's no one else here,” he murmured, forcing eye contact even as he broke Zsasz's stare-off with Oswald, slotting his body against the assassin's and pressing him back against the the solid, ornately carved bedpost. “Remember?”_

_Eyes_ _narrowing at_ _the challenge in Jim's gaze, Zsasz hooked long fingers in the knot of the detective's tie and erased the light between them._


	49. And though your heart is made of pure sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim wondered what portion of his soul he would have to carve off in return, particularly with the axe Tabitha had to grind with Oswald, and his own recent...lapse in judgment leaving him now caught precariously between two hostile factions, with an ever-growing number of mouths to feed and people looking to him as the star by which to set their course, unable to brook the morale-demolishing revelation that the man on the pedestal was as flawed and fallible as any of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me a hot minute to get this up. It has been written and ready for edits for some time, I just had some crazy RL drama rear its ugly head and then there was company visiting in the thick, sticky middle of it all, so...apologies. I will try to have another part up _toute de suite_ for you lovelies that are still diligently sticking with me on this mad carnival ride.
> 
> Vague spoiler warnings for _Gotham_ season 5 apply, and still muchly AU; y'all know the drill. Chapter title taken from a line of _Here it Lies_ by Emily Jane White.
> 
> Comments are the kindling for the small flame by which I warm the cockles of my black little heart. <3

XLIX.  And though your heart is made of pure sin

 _Well I have brittle bones it seems_  
_I bite my tongue and torch my dreams_  
_Have a little voice to speak with_  
_And a mind of thoughts and secrecy_  
_Things cannot be reversed, we learn from the times we are cursed_  
_Things cannot be reversed, learn from the ones we fear the worst_  
_And learn from the ones we hate the most how to_

 _Blow out all the candles, blow out all the candles_  
_"You're too old to be so shy," he says to me so I stay the night_  
_Just a young heart confusing my mind, but we're both in silence_  
_Wide-eyed, both in silence_  
_Wide-eyed_

 _\--Candles_ , Daughter

\+ + +

Jim sifted through the stack of folders Lucius had left on his desk, having gone through them twice already but finding himself unable to focus on actually processing more than the most basic gist of what he was looking at.

Things at Haven seemed to be coming together smoothly enough, given the givens, and despite the rumours of gang members being assassinated on their own turf that had been coming back from their eyes on the ground in the lesser criminal factions of the city. The larger factions south of the Sprang had kept mostly to border squabbles and pushing their pawns around, avoiding any bigger moves since the initial territory grab in the wake of the destruction of the Guard outposts and the mainland's top brass subsequently declaring a total blackout, suspending all pending aid and leaving the stranded Gothamites to fend for themselves.

Since the rescue of the children from the Soothsayers, refugees had been trickling in from all sectors, and there were already talks of scoping out a secondary site, as they were rapidly running out of space to house them.

Supplies had been growing steadily thinner, particularly with the shifting tides of the black market after being cut off from even the military's grudging allotments of aid. There was already increased unrest amongst the refugees and within the ranks of GCPD itself; they would only be able to keep tightening their belts and stretching their rations so far before riots broke out, or worse. Much as it galled him, with things as they were it was increasingly likely he would have to broach some sort of deal with the Sirens before too long. 

Jim wondered what portion of his soul he would have to carve off in return, particularly with the axe Tabitha had to grind with Oswald, and his own recent...lapse in judgment leaving him now caught precariously between two hostile factions, with an ever-growing number of mouths to feed and people looking to him as the star by which to set their course, unable to brook the morale-demolishing revelation that the man on the pedestal was as flawed and fallible as any of them.

Harvey had been looking at him strangely since their little _tête-a-tête_ , despite being the one to insist on Jim opening up in the first place.   _Compromised_ didn't even _begin_ to cover it, all hopes of neutrality now cleanly shot to hell by his personal entanglement not just with Zsasz, but the kingpin himself. 

Jim couldn't but be driven to distraction by both his partner's constant side-eyeing, and the unbidden flashes of the other night which seemed all too keen on repeating themselves every time Jim settled in behind his paper mountain, fully intending to put his nose to the grindstone.

+

 _“C’mon,_ Jim _,” Zsasz murmured, turning the tables and pushing Jim's shoulders deeply into the lush give of the mattress, “fuck me like I'm your_ enemy _, not your prom date.”_

_“...What if you're neither of those things?”_

_“Then what am I?”_

_Jim caught his thumb against the bruised curve of Zsasz's lower lip, the pad of his finger coming away faintly scarlet from a small split that had reopened. His own mouth was still tender from being kissed as though Zsasz would steal the very breath from his lungs, tasting of copper and salt, like a sacrifice._

_His hand slid downward, painting a narrow ribbon of red in its wake as callused, sun-touched fingers moved to loosely bracket the pale column of Zsasz's throat, exerting the barest promise of pressure._

_The weight of Oswald's gaze from the far side of the room lit their lamp-gilt skin like a brand._

_“I don't know.”_

+

Zsasz worked his way methodically down the line of blades arrayed before him, bringing each to a deadly, shining finish with the tender, limitless patience of a devotee, or a lover.

Beneath the slow, meditative rhythm of whetstone over steel, he absently registered Lilija settling beside him on the couch; the quiet rustle of her peony printed kimono, the elusive hint of the woodsy-floral chypre she favoured caught in her hair and the folds of shifting silk as she made herself comfortable, setting out a curious array of brushes and sponges on a towel beside a bulging cosmetic bag.

They sat in companionable silence for some moments while she spread out the contents of her bag to whatever private and exacting personal standards, Zsasz only faltering when he felt her fingertips catch lightly beneath his jaw and the damp slide of a sponge leaving a wide swathe of foundation down his cheek.

“...What are you doing?” He cut his gaze to her curiously, turning his chin out of her grasp.

She blinked back at him, unperturbed. “Basing you out.”

His brows furrowed slightly even as he leaned away when she came at him with the sponge again. “...Why?”

“Because I’ve already memorized every trashy rag in this place, and I'm missing _Rupaul's Drag Race._ ”

“You could always inventory the armoury,” he deadpanned.

Lilija wrinkled her nose at the prospect, giving him an unimpressed look. _You could always get fucked. Oh_ wait… She tilted her head slightly, fiery waves sifting over her shoulder as her glossed lips pursed in thought. “Name your price.”

“For suffering through the gauntlet of your turning me into your own personal _kitty girl_?” Zsasz mirrored her headtilt, considering. “How about you deal me in on your _game_?” The Girls’ fabled poker night was a continual source of intrigue, both for the novelty of never having been invited, and for whatever contraband he was sure crossed that table.

“No can do, V. Girls only; besides, we need somewhere to gossip about your sex life with impunity. _Kidding_ ,” she said when his eyebrows hiked abruptly skyward, his expression skirting the borderlands between intrigue and affront. _Not kidding_. “What else?”

Zsasz's eyes narrowed as he carefully considered his options.

“It's _awful_ quiet in here; what sort of trouble are y'all getting...up to.” Rhett paused in the doorway, arms folding beneath her generous assets as her gaze triangulated between Zsasz, Lilija, and the spread on the coffee table.

“Sharpening the knives and breaking out the bronzer...there a pageant on the horizon no one told me about?”

“ _Miss Battle Royale_?” Bekah chimed in archly, appearing behind Rhett with a tall glass of something fruity and alcoholic in her hand. Her dark eyes positively lit up as she took the lay of the land. “Ooh, are we tormenting V? _I'm_ in.”

 _Traitor_.  Bekah grinned unrepentantly as Zsasz narrowed his eyes, watching her step around Rhett to make herself comfortable in the armchair with the best vantage.

She met his gaze directly, unintimidated and giving no quarter. “ _And_ while we're at it, our captive audience can dish about the other night...for those of us who were stuck freezing our tits off on a rooftop babysitting a bunch of white hats, instead of sitting pretty on guard duty and touching up their manicure, _well_ within earshot.”

Zsasz gave her a withering look, before cutting his gaze toward Lilija, who blinked back at him as innocently as anyone he _hadn't_ watched nearly decapitate a mark twice her size with a garrotte then neatly step over the corpse as she straightened her gloves, all without breaking a sweat. “What happened to _not_ gossiping about my sex life?”

The redhead flashed him a winsome smile. “I lied. Now sit still, and let me make you pretty.”

Zsasz studied the trio of women eyeing him up like a pride of lionesses would a particularly wobbly and tender-looking wildebeest calf, briefly considering retreat as the better part of valour, before dismissing it out of hand. He was not entirely opposed to being tarted up, _per se_ , it was more the principle of the thing. 

On the other hand, he had suffered far worse indignities at the hands of their boredom, and if he balked, they would never let him live it down.  Bekah in particular.

_In for a penny._


	50. I saw your body it was hollow through and through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What's this, then?” Jim reached toward the bruise coming up below Zsasz's eye, the line of a small scar on his cheekbone standing in pale contrast, only to have the assassin lean back from the touch rather than into it, expression unreadable.
> 
> “It’s nothing.”
> 
> “Nothing,” Jim echoed blankly, incredulity evident. However negligible the actual damage, the set of Zsasz's jaw and tight line of his shoulders suggested it was anything but.
> 
> “Just a...difference of opinion.”
> 
> “...About?”
> 
> Zsasz shrugged. “How to raise a kid in the apocalypse?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good god, y'all. Chapter. _Fifty_.
> 
> I cannot believe I made it this far, honestly; this all started out as an excercise to flex my rusty-ass fiction-writing muscles, and entirely got away from me. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me, all of you lovelies who are still hanging in there, diligently clinging to the coattails of all this crazy.
> 
> Overall spoiler warnings for _Gotham_ season 5. Chapter title taken from _The Wolves_ by Emily Jane White.
> 
> A special shout-out to HistoryIsCulture, who has been with me since the very beginning, and asked for more Jim and Victor. Enjoy. <3
> 
> Comments are love.

L. I saw your body it was hollow through and through

 _The swan sang with a broken neck_  
_Out by the pool, behind the fence_  
_You can’t forgive me when_  
_You know if I had the gun, I’d_  
_Choose to shoot again_

 _He raised my hands in the backyard_  
_He taught me to be a good shot_  
_You love the sound of sorry_  
_Even when you know I am not_  
_I am not_

 _\--Swan,_ Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

Jim nearly jumped out of his skin upon turning around from switching on the beacon and realizing Zsasz was seated on the ground with his back to the wall near the rooftop access door, having walked right past him on the way out. “Victor. _How_ \--what are you doing here?”

The assassin's answering shrug was entirely unhelpful, his face cast into chiaroscruro by the spotlight's indirect ambience. “Needed a place to think.”

 _Okay_ … Jim dropped into a crouch beside him, reaching for his wrist only to recoil at the iciness of that too-pale skin. “Christ, you're _freezing_. How long have you been up here?”

Zsasz blinked slowly, considering. “A while.”

Jim frowned. “...Do you want to come inside? I could probably scare up some coffee.” Or tea, if Alfred was feeling generous.

“I'm good up here, thanks.”

+

The temperature had plummeted with the retreat of the sun, and Jim was fairly certain his left asscheek had gone entirely numb. Getting up again was going to be a _bitch_.

He had stubbornly taken a seat when Zsasz rebuffed his invitation to come inside, just close enough that their shoulders could touch, if Zsasz willed it. The assassin had not budged an inch, staring silently into the deepening darkness and the sprawling embroidery of stars Jim _still_ could not get used to after so long in the city.

“What's this, then?” Jim reached toward the bruise coming up below Zsasz's eye, the line of a small scar on his cheekbone standing in pale contrast, only to have the assassin lean back from the touch rather than into it, expression unreadable.

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing,” Jim echoed blankly, incredulity evident. However negligible the actual damage, the set of Zsasz's jaw and tight line of his shoulders suggested it was anything but.

“Just a...difference of opinion.”

“...About?”

Zsasz shrugged. “How to raise a kid in the apocalypse?” At Jim's baffled look, he elucidated, though not in a way that was at all clarifying. “I probably should have gone about it differently...the little bird isn't always open to ideas he didn't come up with himself. He was probably more pissed about my presumption...”

Jim winced at the emptiness of Zsasz's tone, completely at odds with the turmoil in his eyes, the tense line of his jaw.

“...and anyway, he was right; I'm no-one to the kid. It's not my place to make decisions about his wellbeing.”

Jim floundered for a response, feeling at a loss with so little to go on. He grappled with his own ambivalence, simultaneously wishing Zsasz would be more forthcoming so he could piece together a more complete picture, while at once feeling like an interloper, edging into a situation he wasn't quite sure he had the currency to weigh in on.

Whatever the catalyst, it must have been one _hell_ of an argument.

+

“Do you, uh, need someplace to stay?”

 _Smooth, Gordon_ , Jim chided himself inwardly, feeling not unlike a gawky adolescent making stilted overtures toward a crush despite the vast and chequered history that lay between them, and wondering what the hell possessed him to invite _Victor Zsasz_ to crash under same roof as a building full of _cops_. Just the proximity to Victor seemed to make him stupid, and reckless. His gut twisted uncomfortably, even as he waited for the assassin's response.

“Why, Jim; you offering to clear out a _cell_ , just for little old me?” The words were right, though his tone wasn't _quite_ up to the usual Zsasz standard of sass. It had been a long day.

Jim pressed their shoulders together, the assassin's body a welcome line of relief from the deepening chill of the rooftop. “You can share with me,” he offered, leaning more solidly into Zsasz's side and hooking his chin against the hard line of the younger man's shoulder, studying the sharp, dimly illuminated lines of his profile and wondering which one of them was the source of the subtle, temperature-induced tremor he could feel through their points of contact.

“Doing it on a GCPD cot _has_ always been on my bucket list,” Zsasz mused reflectively, expression giving away nothing.

“That’s not--to _sleep_ ,” Jim admonished, mildly exasperated. And intrigued, despite himself. _Another time_. “Otherwise come morning someone is going to come up here and find us frozen like the little match girl.”

“But that could be so romantic.”

“Uh-huh.” Jim's expression was dubious. He reluctantly forced himself to break the line of warmth between them, bracing a hand against the wall and feeling his back and frozen extremities protest, vehemently. _Damn_.

Zsasz watched bemusedly, rising to his feet with an easy grace that was both enviable and galling. “Need some help, old man?”

“Shut. Up.” Jim ground out, but notably did _not_ protest the hand up that Zsasz offered.


	51. Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You sure you don't want that coffee? Or, well, I’m pretty sure Harvey left a bottle of scotch stashed behind the cold case files--”
> 
> “I'm good,” Zsasz replied curtly, filing away the fact that Bullock apparently used Jim's office as a repository for his booze, dark gaze drifting around the room, absently cataloguing the changes since he had last been here. Chaos had definitely crept in around the edges, small personal effects intruding upon the once-professional space that surely came of Jim, to all intents and purposes, living as well as working there. He belatedly tacked on a quiet, “thanks,” as his eyes returned to Jim's face, registering the vaguely kicked, loose-ended expression at Zsasz's shortness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: there's a considerable amount of touchy, controversial shit in this chapter. Children and guns, domestic violence (because even if you're into some rough stuff in the bedroom, that's completely different from lashing out at your partner in anger; intent _matters_. Please be healthy and safe, lovelies), allusions to issues of agency and consent, a dose of backstory on Zsasz's violent past, and a look into the seriously unhealthy headspace behind Zsasz's breezy, natural born killer facade; just...beware the landmines, y'all.
> 
> Chapter title taken from this line of _Satire 3_ by John Donne: _Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids / Those tears to issue which swell my eye-lids._ Also, a tiny nod to the Luc Besson film _The Professional_ , which if anyone has not seen it, should definitely be added to your watch list; it's _brilliant_.
> 
> Comments are love.

LI.  Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids

 _Oh this town you've never seen before_  
_There's always big guns at your door_  
_The sentiment of class is blood born_

 _I'd like to write a song for you_  
_With arms wide open the way I do_

 _And I'd like to tell the truth to you_  
_Shot through the chest the way I do_

 _\--The Demon_ , Emily Jane White

\+ + +

_Oswald’s gaze fixed on the gloved, longfingered hands gently guiding Martin's slow but determined efforts to put the partially reassembled pistol back together, until all that remained was the empty magazine that lay on the desk, rounds soldiered in a tidy line beside it, waiting to be reloaded._

_“Just what the_ hell _do you think you're doing?” he hissed, causing Martin to outright jump and Zsasz to ever so subtly startle._

Well, shit.

+

The last time he had been in Jim's office, it had been in broad daylight, in full view of the assembled GCPD, hellbent for leather on making a statement, and delivering a message. Taunting Jim's partner had been an enjoyable bonus.

Night and day, both figuratively and literally, from being escorted discreetly across the sparsely manned bullpen and up the stairs with the weight of Jim's palm against the small of his spine, garnering a few stares but no comment from the harrowed, thinworn uniforms on duty as they passed.

+

_Zsasz had taken swing shift on guard duty, having stepped into the rotation so Bekah, coming in off of extended recon and dead on her feet, could steal a couple of hours of much-needed rack-time. Losing Layla and a handful of Oswald's musclebound brain trusts in a recent border scuffle with the Undead, and having Miette and Yana out of commission after a run-in with a couple of Scarecrow’s hangers-on and a faceful of the latest technicolour fear toxin, had thrown the rota off enough that they were all feeling it._

_Despite much preferring to keep his own eyes on things, the Citadel was disappointingly unexciting, being as far as it was behind Oswald's considerable defenses, and although that was all to the good in regards to the Boss and Martin's safety, it made for a dull shift._

_In a bid to pass the time, he was field-stripping his weapons one by one, checking and rechecking the immaculately maintained components before fitting the pieces back together as easily as breathing._

_He registered the weight of eyes on him, turning his head to meet Martin's curious stare. “Hey, buddy. You need something?”_

+

“You sure you don't want that coffee? Or, well, I’m pretty sure Harvey left a bottle of scotch stashed behind the cold case files--”

“I'm good,” Zsasz replied curtly, filing away the fact that Bullock apparently used Jim's office as a repository for his booze, dark gaze drifting around the room, absently cataloguing the changes since he had last been here. Chaos had definitely crept in around the edges, small personal effects intruding upon the once-professional space that surely came of Jim, to all intents and purposes, living as well as working there. He belatedly tacked on a quiet, “thanks,” as his eyes returned to Jim's face, registering the vaguely kicked, loose-ended expression at Zsasz's shortness.

The echoes from his earlier confrontation with Oswald chased themselves around his head like dogs, pulling Zsasz’s attention from his surroundings till he felt Jim's hands push his coat from his shoulders. He caught them as they hesitated briefly over the straps of his shoulder rig, pushing them away and shrugging free of it with the ease of long practice.

He set it neatly aside before reaching for Jim's hands again, pulling them back to his sides. The weight of them was comfortingly familiar as they carefully formed the shape of his waist, as though they might somehow both shield and contain him, before gripping the edge of his shirt to pull it free of his slacks, seeking skin.

The shock of those still-icy fingers, the rough reverence with which they mapped the well-traveled topography of his scars and hard curve of sinew and bone beneath, was a welcome distraction.

+

 _“He could_ hurt _himself! Or_ worse _!” Oswald shrilled, in full pique and clearly raring for a fight. They stared each other down, the fury in the kingpin's eyes met squarely by the assassin's implacable coolness._

 _Martin had since been sent off to bed, with a strained smile from Oswald and Zsasz's even assurances that everything was_ all good _, though the boy's dubious expression and wide eyes as he did as he was told suggested that he did_ not _entirely buy what they were selling._ Smart kid _._

 _“He could get more hurt not knowing how to handle himself,” Zsasz countered, cheek still smarting from the backhand Oswald had laid on him the moment Martin was out of earshot. “His_ not _knowing his way around a gun isn't going to stop one of your enemies from drawing down on him.”_ To get to _you._

 _“That's why I have_ you _!”_

Ouch _. “And if I'm not here?”_ Or someone gets _lucky_? _“What then?”_

+

The assassin's coat lay neatly over the chair before Jim's desk alongside the detective's slightly rumpled suit jacket, his shoulder rig hooked over the back of the battered leather sofa they were currently stretched out on, within easy reach.

The weight of Jim's recumbent body, half draped over him beneath the unsurprisingly scratchy police-issue blanket, was solidly grounding.  The quiet rhythm of the other man's breath, the steady throb of his heartbeat against Zsasz's ribs, lent an intimacy to the relative stillness of the close, lived-in space of the office, which nonetheless felt uncomfortably exposed with the low-level bustle of the bullpen ticking down the early hours just on the other side of the door he really hoped Jim had had the forethought to lock before singlemindedly applying himself to the task of getting their clothes off.

Curiously enough, they hadn't really _gotten_ anywhere despite the abandoned twists of commingled clothing littering the floor; apparently Jim took issue with a lack of _full audience participation_ , even going so far as to look affronted when Zsasz assured him it was _fine_ and moved to pull him close again, staring at the assassin as though he were a stranger and not someone Jim had been permitted to see past the deceit of flesh and glimpse the _truth_ of.

It had _stung_ , like a flaskful of rotgut in a GSW with no exit wound, right before whoever was pinch-hitting as medic started digging around in his side with a stiletto or, if he was lucky, whatever makeshift surgical implements might be to hand.

Blinking hard, he had stepped back out of Jim's space, feeling the strangest urge to _flee_ despite not knowing where he would go. His feet had brought him to the GCPD seemingly of their own accord; he hadn't expected to actually _see_ Jim in coming here, but knowing the detective was going about his business in the floors below had been a comfort of sorts, settling what elements of Zsasz's internal architecture had been overturned in his disagreement with Oswald perhaps not entirely, but _enough_.

+

_Martin shook his head slightly to the negative, stepping hesitantly nearer at the openness of the enforcer's demeanour. His pyjamas were creased and hair rumpled, favourite rabbit tucked in the crook of his arm as he approached, his gaze fixed intently upon the GSR in Zsasz's hands._

_Zsasz took in the boy’s appearance and the position of the hands on the clock mounted above the doorway. “Can't sleep?” At Martin’s answering shrug, Zsasz followed the direction of that inquisitive gaze, frowning slightly as he carefully weighed his options._

_On the one hand, Oswald was likely to have_ kittens _, and possibly even throw him out of their bed if not out on his ass entirely if the little bird's blood was_ really _up._

+

“ _Hey_ ,” Jim had murmured, catching Zsasz's face between his hands, seemingly alarmed by whatever unraveling he had glimpsed behind the usually unflappable killer's eyes, the sudden tension stringing the lines of his limbs tight with arrested movement, the brittle lines of his expression, like poorly tempered steel.

“I don't know what you want,” Zsasz had confessed hopelessly, the sound of his voice unrecognizable to his own ears.

+

 _“He's not_ your _son,” Oswald snapped, changing tack and going for_ blood _. “I pay you to keep him_ safe _, not to offer parenting advice, or to indoctrinate him into becoming one of your footsoldiers.”_

 _Try as he might to just let them roll off like one of the little bird's usual outbursts, the words laid Zsasz open to the bone. He would have much preferred another backhand. Or a bullet. “...Right.”_ Good enough to step into the flak for the kid, or make him a sandwich, or tuck him in at night, but _not… “Because I'm just the help.”_

_The words stood between them, all the more cutting for their lack of edges._

+

It was only after Jim's thumbs smoothed carefully beneath his eyes that Zsasz had realized his cheeks were wet.

He had tried to turn out of Jim's grasp, away from the weight of the shock and concern in that wide, blue-eyed stare, but Jim had released his hold on Zsasz's face only to grip him by the shoulders and guide him onto the couch, having a care for the assassin's pride in the quiet way he went about it, like a handler minding the increased potential lethality of the teeth and claws of an injured tiger under their charge.

“I don't want anything,” Jim had countered, when he had Zsasz prone and had settled himself carefully along Zsasz's side, the loose curve of his arm across the asassin's ribs toeing the careful knife’s edge between comfort and captivity, only to amend, at Zsasz's quiet huff of a watery, incredulous laugh, “you don't _owe_ me anything. You don't have to--to _yield_ something as...in exchange for being here.”

Zsasz had intently studied the patch of ceiling beyond the warm curve of Jim's bare shoulder, unable to meet the detective's eyes for silent, gut-twisting panic at what _else_ Jim might see now that he knew well enough to look.

 _Everything costs something, Jim,_ he had thought, but replied with a quiet, “Okay.”

+

_On the other, the reality they were living in was a wolf that devoured with impunity, taking the unarmed and the innocent as surely as those who flirted with the razor's edge knowing full well they would die by it._

Fuck it.

+

Jim had since succumbed to sleep, after the silence between them had lost some of its fragile edges, becoming close and comfortable in a way Zsasz feared becoming accustomed to, as he always had when falling asleep in the easy tangle of Jim's sheets, the welcome brand of Jim's hand upon his waist, lulled toward oblivion by the familiar, waterstained moonscape of Jim’s ceiling in that shitty little apartment.

They were not built for each other, he and Jim. No matter how neatly they might fit together, or the moments that seemed to hold their breath between them, when it seemed Jim truly _saw_ him, and yet for all his chances to the contrary chose not to look away.

Not the way that Zsasz and Oswald were, both born of the lightless places, purchasing every inch of that mean estate in counts of suffering meted and endured, and endless cycles of retribution carefully tallied on Death's bloody abacus.

The night he, Jim and Oswald had all come together had been exhilarating and entirely terrifying. _Settling_ , like the jumble of sharp, brittle-edged pieces rattling around in Zsasz's chest had suddenly smoothed themselves into order, a puzzle coming together to reveal the image its unresolved chaos obscured.

Like the first time Falcone's then-enforcer, Leon, had pressed a gun in his hand and directed his aim at something other than paper, tin, or clay. He could recall it with perfect clarity, the give of the trigger beneath the pressure of his hand, the dull, wet sound of impact as flesh yielded and absorbed the force of the bullet, as opposed to the expected tearing, shattering, or ricochet.

The way the man's pleading and terror yielded to the singleminded purity of _pain_ , then to incomprehensible denial, then to a lightless nothingness as young Victor had put another round in him, then another, the gruff old enforcer's gloved hand landing over his own, neatly removing the Beretta from slim fingers trembling with adrenaline.

Zsasz remembered the clamminess of his palms, the roiling of his guts, as he had looked upon the bloody remains of his first kill, before consigning the snitch’s corpse to the fetid embrace of the marshes; the only first in his short, bitter life that he had ever been fully agent to, not taken but asked of him by the will of his Don, with which he had been so eager to comply, and prove his _worth_ , his unwavering loyalty.

Leon's offhand, uneffusive praise, the brief warmth of a hand on his shoulder when they returned to the man's old Cutlass, had settled something in Victor that had shaken loose and shattered in him when his parents died, something that had only ever been torn and twisted into further disarray in the years that followed, except in the presence of his Don.

A clarity of purpose, of _control_ that had so long eluded him he could not recall the feeling, if indeed he had ever known it before, further cemented by the Don's quiet pride upon their return to the estate; something even Mario, for all his subsequent efforts to the contrary, had failed to touch.

+

_He reloaded the clip, slid it home and reholstered his weapon, before bending to retrieve Martin's stuffed rabbit from where it had fallen, forgotten, halfway under the desk._

_Tonguing the inside of his cheek to relish the copper-bright, shameful sting of it, Zsasz leveled Oswald with an inscrutable look. He hesitated almost imperceptibly, then held out the faded, threadbare toy. “He'll be missing it.”_

_Oswald's hands moved reflexively to take it, smoothing absently over the patchy velveteen fur, the beginnings of remorse flickering to life behind his eyes. “Victor,_ wait. _I--”_

+

Surrendering to Oswald’s tableau, the curious power inherent in _yielding_ , had been never more apparent than when Zsasz found himself caught between the unstoppable force and immovable object of the two very disparate men in whose orbit the conspiracy of desire and circumstance had seen him neatly caught, fallen victim to the slow, inexorable tightening of snares of his own making.

Zsasz could not have dared imagine, how much better than any quick, bloodyminded fix from his previous, impersonal back-room assignations or transactional interludes with the few trustworthy Doms of his acquaintance it could be, to have within the limits of his reach both of those who had, without his knowing, so deeply set their hooks into the tender, vital places behind his bones.

He remembered blinking awake between them, feeling the tender limits of his own skin in the glow of newstruck bruises and following with his gaze the coiled ribbons of light and shadow that pooled in the slope of their limbs, the honey-gold and porcelain curves of their slack faces, feeling queerly adrift in the cocoon of ease and stillness that hung between such sworn enemies in the sweethanded grips of Morpheus that could surely not withstand the bitter, waking truth of daylight. Zsasz had finally extricated himself, nerves overwound with uncertainty and anticipation, fleeing the warm tangle of limbs and impossible desires for the sanctuary of the bathroom and a punishingly hot shower.  
  
When Zsasz had emerged, Jim was gone, and Oswald's expression, sleep-struck and opaque, had caught his own for a brief, raw moment before effectively shutting him out as the little bird burrowed resolutely back beneath the bedcovers. It was like the backlash of a spell, whose effects dissipated with the dawnslight, but like the notes of a sounded chord could still be felt reverberating deeply into the aftertime; a bell that, once struck, could never be un-rung.

+

_Releasing the breath he had been holding, Zsasz dropped the clip, ejected the chambered round, and set them neatly aside, then reversed his hold on the weapon, extending it grip-first toward the boy._

_“First off, kid, this is_ not _a toy...”_

+

Jim came to with a small noise of protest, blinking grittily and stirring to life against Zsasz's side, pulling him back to the present.

“Morning,” Jim murmured thickly, sitting up and swiping a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes.

It took a moment for the detective's higher brain functions to come back online, not having slept so deeply in longer than he cared to remember, but when they did, he had the wherewithal to assess Zsasz narrowly, clocking the sleepless violet smudges beneath his eyes. “Did you sleep at _all_?”

“Sure,” Zsasz demurred, with a twist to his mouth suggesting that while he did not expect Jim to _buy_ it, he _did_ expect him to drop it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, um....this chapter. Took _forever_ to finish (I thought it was _done_ when I posted the last chapter, but it kept feeling like it was _missing_ something, so I kept coming back to it, and....it just. Kept. _Growing_ ). 
> 
> Apologies for the wait; blame _him_. *points fingers at Zsasz, the hot mess* He's the one who kept slowing me up, having all of his big, messy _feelings_ all over the damn place. I was like, _this, too, you shall bear in your usual cool, longsuffering way, like the boss you are, and we shall be sallying forth to the next installments_ , only to find myself at a loss while he had his internal meltdown and I just stood by, awkwardly holding out a box of Kleenex. o_o
> 
> So...yes. That's why this took so damn long. Hope it was worth the wait.
> 
> x


	52. Like skinned does a-dangling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep played hard-to-get, the baseline of physical ache and exhaustion causing Zsasz to drift in a half-restful state, a corner of his awareness vigilantly minding the partially open door and the subdued bustle of the safehouse beyond even as he lay there, feeling at a strange and disjointed remove from himself.
> 
> He must have succumbed at some point, or he was still hallucinating, because he could have sworn he felt the weight of deceptively slim, circling arms, the familiar shifting of expensively perfumed wool and silk brocade, the depression of another, smaller body upon the mattress behind him. But when he blinked back the fog of chemical hangover, there was no evidence that he had ever not been alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: There's some gore and drug-induced hallucinations in this chapter, so please tread carefully. I was trying to figure out how to tackle the effects of Crane's fear toxin, but still keep it in line with the rest of this. Not really sure how I did, but...here we are. Hopefully it scans; I put it through its paces as far as edits (and re-edits), but the time has come to release it into the wild and set my sights on the next chapter (please let me know if it is _too_ terrible; I've been too close to it for far too long to tell at this point).
> 
> On the upside, you get Alfred. And Tea. And Baked goods.
> 
> Spoilers for s05e01: _Year Zero_ , as well as blanket spoilers for _Gotham_ season 5 in general. Chapter title taken from a line of _Bundles_ by Mariee Sioux.
> 
> Comments are love.

LII.  Like skinned does a-dangling

 _He wants to lift weights like a fighter_  
_We put the medals on the wall_  
_In the room of starving vultures_  
_Gold trophies, he got 'em all_

 _He wants to be just like his father_  
_We play the knife game on the table_  
_I bleed to death, it doesn’t matter_  
_'Cause my baby, he’s still the winner_

 _He holds me in his arms, but it’s no good_  
_Things don’t go like they should_  
_He holds me in his arms, but it’s no good_  
_Things don’t go like they should_

 _\--American Tradition_ , Nicole Dollanganger

\+ + +

“Easy, V, easy--” Lilija's voice was distant, cool as a balm, as the hand resting between his shoulderblades. Zsasz hunched painfully in on himself, his stomach futilely trying to bring up what remained of its nonexistent contents as he shakily braced himself against the alley wall, the cool drizzle drifting between the abandoned buildings welcome against the queasy, coldhot flush of his unhealthily blanched skin.

At the mouth of the alley, he could feel the silent pillar of Xue Lin's presence, inscrutable dark eyes turned to the street beyond, the unwavering sentinel to whom he owed his life several times over, and more besides.

He gamely accepted the canteen Lilija pressed upon him, rinsing the worst of the foulness from his mouth before taking an actual sip, the tepid liquid soothing his raw throat.

He tested the slowly receding edges of the total, blind panic that had had him so squarely in its grips, still feeling the tender, stinging imprints of its teeth behind his bones.

 _If this is what a morning after is like,_ he thought sourly, _I'm so fucking glad I don't drink._

+

_Fear closed its jaws around his throat. The marble floor was redslick and reeking of copper and viscera, of secrets interred in the dark beneath the skin of moist, greenbladed earth. The assassin's boots slid and stuck, his usually silent steps resounding like a heartbeat in the awful stillness as he sidestepped the twisted, glass-eyed corpses of several does, piled incongrously as cordwood at the base of the grandiose staircase leading from Oswald's office in the Citadel to his private quarters, to begin his ascent._

_At the top, the marble gave way to richly carpeted hardwood, the sodden pile giving moistly beneath his bootsoles, the old floorboards protesting familiarly as the long hallway of his youth in the Falcone household stretched endlessly before him._

+

If he had the wherewithal, Zsasz would have been humiliated by the hand that kept covering his own to adjust his slack grip on Lilija's waist, or the uncommonly sedate, careful pace she kept, Xue Lin covering their six on Zsasz's own SS900 as they cut across the Green Zone and around the park.

The women's guard barely relaxed as they crossed into their own turf, making their way to a secondary, closer safehouse on the Upper East Side, rather than their primary base of operations adjacent to Sabine's territory in the Bowery.

+

_Zsasz glanced up in surprise as a steaming mug of Ceylon was set before him. He had quickly bored of watching Jim sift through his mountain of paperwork in the clinging, predawn dark, unaccustomed to idleness even with the added incentive of watching the detective work in his shirtsleeves, his edges burned to gilt and shadow by lamplight, looking enticingly dressed-down with his oxford half unbuttoned and his cuffs folded back over his forearms, usually tidy coif only halfway tamed from the disarray sleep and Zsasz’s hands had reduced it to._

_The assassin had redressed, coat covering the worst of the creases in his own shirt and trousers from a night spent on the floor where Jim had dropped them, and silently slipped out of the captain's office only to stop short at the much more occupied bullpen and wall of blue uniforms that greeted him, as well as the smattering of curious and hostile stares that turned his direction. He found himself acutely glad for the familiar weight of his shoulder rig and holstered GSRs beneath the lines of the coat he'd shrugged into as an afterthought._

_“Looked like you could use it,” Alfred replied, answering the assassin's raised eyebrow and unasked question. He settled into the chair opoosite with his own cuppa, looking on approvingly as long hands circled the proffered beverage and raised it to that pale, uncharacteristically unsmiling mouth for a careful sip. “No biscuits to speak of, I'm afraid.”_

_“This is great, thanks,” Zsasz demurred, knowing well how tight the everyday luxuries had become, even for a man connected to a billionaire, and deeply appreciative of the gesture._

_They sat companionably for a moment, though Zsasz felt the butler's penetrating blue gaze studying him keenly._

_Brows furrowed as he marked the signs of strain and sleeplessness at odds with the assassin's usual insouciance and gallows_ joie-de-vivre _, Alfred ventured, carefully, “You all right, then, sweetheart?”_

_“Peachy,” Zsasz answered glibly, though the unlooked-for endearment and the genuine concern behind it made him feel brittle inside._

+

“You need anything?” Lilija murmured, hanging back in the doorway of the sparsely furnished room into which Xue Lin had helped her half-herd, half-carry their still-impaired boss and compel him, with little ceremony but not quite ungently, toward the plainly appointed bed after stripping him of the worst of his clothes and pushing him to take in as much water as he could manage before the pervasive, gut-churning nausea cried mutiny.

Zsasz muttered a vague, not unexpected negative in response, having surrendered to the undignified treatment with ill grace and a kind of washed-out mulishness, tempered only by how not-right he felt.

+

_The scent of old roses and new blood thickened the dim air, the dark-paneled walls seeming to lean in upon him as he progressed. The rooms had rearranged themselves, the door to the old man's office standing incongruously wide on his left, the remains of a fallen wineglass and crystal tumbler gleaming in the gaze of the flame singing its low goldred song in the fireplace._

_Silvery edges also caught the light; the frame of a tattered silk umbrella with an ornate handle; the chillingly familiar shape of a badge, writ over almost entirely with wetgleaming red._

+

“I'll be within earshot if you do,” Lilija said finally, raking him with a measuring gaze then tapping lightly on the door before pulling it halfway to and stepping back out into the corridor, knowing Zsasz's dinted pride could only take so much.

Glad of the chance to lick his wounds in solitude, the assassin turned on his side, curling gingerly around the acrid, unnatural fear still twisting him up like a flag in an ill-favoured wind.

+

_Alfred's hand settled unexpectedly over Zsasz’s upon the desktop, rough and warm, and refreshingly without agenda._

_“...Why?” Zsasz demanded lowly.  He eyed the butler's hand like a viper, caught on the back foot and having reached his limit of unlooked-for and unfathomable gestures, the edges of his usually even voice giving subtly but tellingly._

_The butler's thumb soothed across the line of Zsasz’s knuckles once before the assassin drew his hand back abruptly, feeling uncomfortably exposed._

_“You'll be wanting to drink that before it goes cold,” Alfred remarked, rather than answer the litany of half-formed, unvoiced questions hanging like stilled bells on the air between them. Zsasz stared him down across the desk, the two of them settling into a slightly fraught silence as he finally eased up on his scrutiny and took the Englishman's advice._

_Alfred looked on a moment longer before applying himself to the savouring of his own tea, the momentary tension of unspoken things loosening into the strange, easy cameraderie they seemed to fall to when Alfred ceased butlering and Zsasz previously rested on the laurels of his protracted campaign to rile the butler up with his shameless, playful flirtation._

+

Sleep played hard-to-get, the baseline of physical ache and exhaustion causing Zsasz to drift in a half-restful state.  A corner of his awareness vigilantly minded the partially open door and the subdued bustle of the safehouse beyond even as he lay there, feeling at a strange and disjointed remove from himself.

He must have succumbed at some point, or he was still hallucinating, because he could have sworn he felt the weight of deceptively slim, circling arms, the familiar shifting of expensively perfumed wool and silk brocade, the depression of another, smaller body upon the mattress behind him. But when he blinked back the fog of chemical hangover, there was no evidence that he had ever not been alone.

+

_A tangle of rent grey wool and dark brocade, a tangle of limbs like intergrown vines. Limbs stilled in movement, limbs covered over with torn scarletwet fur, gleaming dully in the firelight. Liquid, unseeing eyes unlit from within, vacant as glass, white throats laid open to loose life like a flood of slowdrying rubies upon the priceless Persian rug that had been in the Falcone family since before Don Carmine's father was born._

_Twin sets of antlers, like and unlike, interlocked in the ruined space between overturned armchairs, stilled mid-impasse, mid-conflict, mid-embrace._

_Zsasz stared uncomprehendingly, guts knotted with a loss, a dread, a deepwelling horror for which he could find no name._

+

Ignoring the renewed sting of uncertainty at the welcome he would receive upon his return to the Citadel, Zsasz pushed through the leadenness in his bones and levered himself upright, eyeing the small trashcan that had been placed oh so thoughtfully within reach as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He clocked his sidearms, still neatly holstered in a tidy pile of leather and gleaming nickel upon the nightstand, feeling a stitch of tension between his shoulderblades come loose at the sight of them.

Shaking off the lingering disorientation that threatened as he found his feet, he freed one of his GSRs and made for the bathroom, shutting and locking the door and finding himself deeply irritated by the palpable sense of relief that small action evoked.

He set the gun on the edge of the sink within easy reach of the shower and locked eyes with the ghost of himself in the mirror, studying his own colourless, thinworn edges with a flicker of disgust.

 _C'mon,_ Zsasz. _Pussy the fuck up and pull your shit together._

+

 _“Is this really it?” Zsasz had asked dubiously, glancing from the meager contents of the GCPD armoury to Alfred's faintly chagrined expression. They had long since finished their tea, and true to form, without an active target and feeling the relentless itch of downtime that could be sublimated into none of his usual outlets, the assassin had ceded to his restlessness and gone_ exploring _. “Seriously?”_

 _“Yes, well--we can't all have a crime kingpin and his munitions factory in our pocket, can we?” Alfred had replied with circumspect tartness, contending with the weight of the assassin's unimpressed stare even as he wondered at the pointed absence of the expected glib response. The Englishman had appointed himself_ de facto _chaperone when Zsasz had gotten restive, unobtrusively falling into step with that silent, long-legged stride and picking up the dropped threads of conversation in the hopes of minimizing the blowback as the younger man slunk around the bowels of the precinct with all the sharp inquisitiveness of a particularly brazen stray._

_Alfred had pushed down a curious, discomfiting thrill as Zsasz poked around the thankfully deserted morgue with interest, watching gloved fingertips trail with brief reverence along the edge of the tray of surgical implements gleaming thinly in the dated artificial lighting before the younger man moved to inspect the contents of the blessedly unoccupied cadaver storage with the keen, focused air with which one might kick the tires on a particularly fine automotive prospect._

_It was a relief to move on, giving Alfred a much-needed moment to forcibly shelve his unsettling and entirely inconvenient fascination with the tall glass of trouble with a capital ‘T’ keeping pace with him and extolling upon the comparative virtues of mortuary coolers versus commercial-grade freezer units with morbid good cheer and expansive hand gestures._

+

A shower--and a brief, brutal affair with a toothbrush and a bottle of Listerine--saw Zsasz much improved. He dug a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved pullover from the functionally austere chest of drawers opposite the bed, feeling far closer to himself by the time he had finished dressing and shrugged back into his shoulder-rig.

Having tucked away his knives and laced up his boots, he shelved the malingering wisps of paranoia crowding in on him like an Eldritch horror and made for the kitchen, tracking the elusive scent of baked goods.

+

_He turned from the incomprehensible tableau in the old man's office, drawn relentlessly onward down the lengthening, shifting hallway by some deep-seated, dark compulsion._

_The door to Sofia's bedroom was ajar, the shadowy void of her brother's threshold looming distortedly large further down the hall. The floor was strewn with books, like a carpet of paperfeathered birds brought down in mid-flight. Loose pages protested crisply underfoot as Zsasz stepped inside._

+

“Is it someone's birthday or something? You _hate_ baking,” Zsasz commented as he settled at one of the stools on the far side of the counter, having learned as well as any of the girls the wisdom of leaving the redhead well alone in the kitchen.

Lilija glanced up from the pastel-lined muffin tins she was dutifully spooning batter into, a tiny stitch of concentration between her neatly penciled brows. “Needed something to do with my hands. Xue Lin made the batter; I figured being poisoned twice in one day would be too much for even _your_ cockroach constitution to handle.”

Zsasz blinked, caught short by the uncharacteristic sentimentality of the gesture, then belatedly processed the rest of what she had said. Surprised, “Xue Lin's still here?”

+

_Zsasz trailed off mid-sentence when the lights abruptly went, head tilting slightly as his attention was drawn by the vague, distant sounds of commotion. Alfred half turned, blinking rapidly in an effort to hurry his vision's adjustment to the sudden lack of illumination, briefly registering what had so distracted the assassin before another, nearer sound had two sets of tightly-wound instincts snapping to._

_The sackclothed, wild-eyed Scarecrow wannabe was so preoccupied with his haul of pilfered goods that he never saw it coming, stepping out of the storeroom into the waiting embrace of a gloved hand across his mouth and the combat knife Zsasz slid neatly between his ribs._

_The flunky’s comrade-at-arms looked up at the sound of tinned beans and peaches hitting the floor. Crazed eyes behind a ghoulish makeshift mask went even wider and the would-be thief abandoned his own plunder in favour of taking a wild swing at Alfred with a nail-studded cudgel. The butler neatly sidestepped the wide arc of the nasty-looking DIY project gone wrong even as Zsasz stepped in behind to dispatch the man in similar fashion to the first, only to get a faceful of toxin as his mark struggled wildly, the man managing to work an arm free and reaching a blindly back to scrabble futilely at Zsasz's cheek like a flight animal in the unyielding grasp of an apex predator._

Fuck.

+

Cutting a glance at him as she reached for the next, pre-lined muffin tin, Lilija pursed her artfully lipsticked mouth, clearly weighing her words. “She's on the roof,” she said finally, digging back into her task of portioning out the future baked goodness into its little frilled paper cups. “Relieved the sentry on duty once we got you settled; helped me with these when she came down to check in.” The addendum _on you_ was unvoiced but heavily implied. “You were in pretty rough shape, V.”

+

_The bedhangings were half-drawn, everything rendered colourless and strange in the absence of fire or lamplight. His gaze was drawn by the huddled mass of blooming darkness that had cast wild tendrils over the edges of the bed like the outhrown petals of a malformed flower._

_He rounded the foot of the bed, coming up on the side better-illuminated by the cool grey gaze of the moon sifting through the windowpanes.  The renewed sting of copper and earth assaulted his senses as he pushed aside the obscuring, diaphanous fabric and tried to make sense of what lay at the centre of the coverlet._

+

Zsasz met Lilija's gaze squarely, despite the urge to look away from the fierceness and worry writ plainly in those familiar, almost colourlessly pale eyes.

“Thanks for pulling me out of there.” _Before I lost myself completely, or hurt…_ He shied from the memory of Alfred facing off with Bullock and Alvarez over taking him into custody, before the upstairs altercation with Crane's minions had grown too immediate to ignore and doing their bit as defenders of the peace had taken precedence.

+

_Coughing and blinking his stinging eyes, Zsasz changed tack and opened the man’s throat in a quick, sloppy arc, letting the suddenly slack weight drop to the floor to join the corpse of the first as he lifted his smarting, slightly blurred gaze to meet Alfred's, vaguely intrigued by the messy curve of scarlet ruining the man's formerly impeccable shirt and waistcoat._

_With typical timing, Bullock picked that precise moment to step into frame with Alvarez and immediately began sputtering with faulty-faucet indignation at finding Zsasz so deep in the white hats’ poorly-appointed_ sanctum santorum _, off-leash and with only the Wayne kid's Jeeves as chaperone._

_It took Bullock a beat longer to register the heap of limbs and burlap, overturned food tins, and rapidly widening bloodstain at Zsasz's feet, or the deepening expression concern on the butler's face._

_“What the_ hell _\--?”_

 _“Harvey! Daddy-o was just giving me the grand tour,” Zsasz replied in a slightly strained approximation of his usual breezy tone, dark eyes lit with less than the expected measure of glee at the rising colour in the veteran detective's face as he incredulously mouthed_ Daddy-o? _to himself and fixed the assassin with his best Bullock-brand stinkeye._

_Zsasz's smirk widened to include Alvarez in its scope, feeling unusually forced around the edges. Despite his tooth-and-nail grip on his composure, the assassin could feel his vitals spiking in response to the drug, panic encroaching around the edges of his vision and coiling around the cage of his chest like an embrace, inescapable and unwelcome._

+

“Anytime.” She stared back at him for a long moment, years of unspoken sentiment and the bone-deep solidarity of having stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches passing between them in a glance. “ _Someone_ needs to mind your crazy ass while the idiots you keep collecting are off trying to commit suicide by ambition or noble intention.”

+

_Tucked beneath the bedclothes, like a toddler before a bedtime story, lay the heaving, broken body of a fawn, the coverlet ink-dark in the moonlight with the loss of far more lifeblood than such a small form could surely contain, let alone spare and still somehow be breathing._

_Seemingly of their own accord, his hands moved to draw back the sodden brocade, his mind struggling to make sense of the ruin of exposed bone and rent fur that lay beneath, to resolve it into something resembling an extension of the small, delicately drawn head of the juvenile deer regarding him from the pillows with wide marble eyes that sought and held his own, despite being senseless with pain and flight-animal panic._

+

“I do not need _minding_ ,” Zsasz protested, flying fully in the face of recent evidence to the contrary. He watched her dubiously prod at the contents of the oven with a toothpick, then pull out two trays of freshly baked muffins, replacing them with the newly filled ones and resetting the timer. “Crane arming rank-and-file flunkies with toxin is _not_ the usual; what happened with Yana and Miette seemed like a fluke, not trending.”  Or so he'd _thought._

+

_“Sunshine? Are you--”_

_Zsasz pushed the chemically-induced reaction willfully away, as one might just as futilely attempt to push against the tide, nearly stumbling over the corpse at his feet with uncharacteristic lack of grace as he instinctively evaded the open hand Alfred extended toward him. The copperwet tang of blood on the air clotted the back of his tongue, twisting nausea through his guts with the clumsiness of a dull knife. Memory turned in on itself like a briar, setting icebrittle teeth in his throat and stealing his breath._

_He shook his head to clear it as the heap of limbs and bloodstained burlap in his periphery briefly blurred to a tangle of gleaming bone and red-damp fur; he knew only that he had to get_ away--

+

He met her skeptical eyebrow raise with a narrow look of his own. “And you say _idiots_ , plural, like I've got them lining up around the block; Jim and Os--the _Boss_ \--is hardly ‘collecting’.”

 _If that's even a thing anymore;_ Zsasz was _not_ looking forward to facing the fallout from the other night. The Boss might have reevaluated and come to the conclusion that keeping Zsasz on wasn't worth the headache, or resolved to keep things strictly _business_ , or decided to forbid him from interacting with--

+

_Tongue thick with the taste of pennies and rot, Zsasz had a mind to reach for one of his sidearms and instead found himself leaning forward to fold his fingers around the creature's throat. He could feel the erratic, featherwinged pulse beneath his suddenly slick hands, the sleekness of its wet pelt abrading the grain of his palms as the broken creature struggled against his grasp._

_His hands felt numbed and not-his-own as the heaving, white-dappled fur finally stilled, delicate bones and fragile trachea giving way beneath the inexorable press of his hands, hummingbird pulse abruptly stilling as he put the small, suffering thing out of its misery._

_Zsasz felt the abrupt disconnect of his own horrified realization, washing over him like a bucketful of iced blades as the tangle of greylight and shadow resolved itself not into the stilled shell of a fawn, but a little boy._

+

\-- _Martin_.

Wresting himself loose of the insidious, phantom remembrance of blood cooling to tackiness on his hands, Zsasz forced himself back to the present, refocusing on the winter-blue eyes studying him intensely from the far side of the kitchen.

Lilija's other eyebrow rose to mirror its twin. “Fairly certain that butler you keep ‘bumping into’ would _gladly_ carve himself off a slice of whatever's on offer, if not for some miguided sense of decorum about _poaching_ on--”

“ _Good talk_ ,” Zsasz interjected, in a tone that might have been considered easy, were it not for the unsheathed warning glinting behind it.  He really wished they were all a _bit_ less vigilant about keeping tabs on him, sometimes--current circumstances notwithstanding--seeing as it lent them the irritating and misguided impression of _carte blanche_ to nose into and remark upon his personal business like it was the stuff of their own personal telenovela. 

He rose abruptly from his seat, feeling an overwhelming urge for fresh air and solitude, or at least the company of someone _not_ hellbent for leather on dissecting the whys and wherefores of his suddenly and inexplicably crowded dance card.

He found Xue Lin in her usual perch at the highest point with the best vantage, settling in beside her without greeting or fanfare.

“ _Fei chang gan xie ni_ ,” Zsasz said at last, when the silence had unspooled with the smooth, easy coolness of the glassed surface of a lake at first light between them.

The corner of Xue Lin's mouth tucked upward ever so slightly as she cut him a brief, knowing glance, then turned her gaze back to her self-appointed vigil.

He felt the momentary press of her shoulder against his own in answer as he contemplated the city's gap-toothed skyline and the deep, star-scattered mantle pinkening in the east above the faded, down-but-not-out old diva it shrouded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as my (admittedly brief) research yielded, _fei chang gan xie ni_ is Mandarin for _thank you very much_ ; I was trying to go for something a bit more heartfelt than the offhand, informal _thanks_ sentiment of _xie xie_ (any Mandarin speakers, please let me know if I failed hopelessly at this).
> 
> I apologize profusely to all of you lovelies who are still hanging in there with this story, for how bloody long this installment has taken to realize. I have honestly been fighting with it since I posted the previous chapter, and have completely restructured it multiple times. *facepalm*
> 
> My Zsasz-muse has been, shall we say, not-thrilled about my plans for him, and has been dragging his heels every time I sit down to write--he would _much_ prefer that it was all non-stop pillow talk, assassination, and baked goods, but, uh...that's not exactly how I roll, so...it's been interesting. 
> 
> (RL also saw fit to kick me in the teeth repeatedly over the past couple of weeks, so... *shrugs* Here we are. Thank you for your continued interest, and your patience.)


	53. Both with those that loved me, and alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He turned the cut crystal tumbler in his hand, watching light refract through the measure of amber liquid inside and catch upon the vessel's intricate facets as crisply as the serrated peaks of a blade.
> 
> Looking back through the lens of a clearer head and a night's distance, Oswald could admit, if only within the closed counsel of his own thought, that he _may_ have grossly miscalculated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies for the long hiatus, darlings. Things have been rather all over the place for the last several weeks (read: shitshow), and I have barely been able to steal time to sleep, let alone sit down and find the focus to write anything worth reading. Thanks ever so for bearing with me, if indeed any of you are still dutifully hanging in there. This chapter's for you, my sweets. <3
> 
> I am in process on the next couple of installments, so hopefully the wait shall not be _nearly_ so long between updates. Things are still wildly hectic for me, but I _am_ hoping to settle into a proper summer schedule rather than a mad, freewheeling dash in the near-ish future, so fingers crossed I should be a bit less scattered and more able to steal time for creative pursuits.
> 
> Blanket spoiler warning for season 5 of _Gotham_ as a matter of course, though nothing too specific in this chapter. Chapter title taken from a line of Tennyson's _Ulysses_.
> 
> Comments are love, as always.

LIII.  Both with those that loved me, and alone

 _Oh but if I was a deep bathtub would you sink down_ _  
_ _To the bottom of my love?_ _  
_ _And if I was a deep bathtub would you sink down_ _  
_ _To the bottom of my love?_ _  
_ _  
_ _But I am not strong and I am not wide and I am not long_ _  
_ _I am not strong, and I am not wide, and we are not tall_ _  
_ _  
_ _Oh cowboy, ride the time_ _  
_ _Ride it high with rhythm and rhyme_ _  
_ _To the sound of a bleeding ghost train_ _  
_ _And a needing, to let go, of tidal pain_ __  
  
He said, Lady, where's your dark undercoat?

\-- _Dark Undercoat_ , Emily Jane White

\+ + +

Try as he might, Oswald could not but keep chewing over his altercation with Zsasz, worrying at it like a cur with a bone that had long since yielded the last of its marrow.  Nor could he shake the memory of his enforcer's gut-shot expression as he'd followed the hot, reflexive impulse to strike out in answer to Zsasz's perceived infringement upon what the kingpin had regarded as solely his own province, save in the _most_ superficial sense: seeing to Martin's safety and wellbeing. 

 _He's not_ your _son._

He turned the cut crystal tumbler in his hand, watching light refract through the measure of amber liquid inside and catch upon the vessel's intricate facets as crisply as the serrated peaks of a blade.

Looking back through the lens of a clearer head and a night's distance, Oswald could admit, if only within the closed counsel of his own thought, that he _may_ have grossly miscalculated.  Both in his own, instinctual reaction to a perceived threat to his sovereignty, and his suspicious, potentially erroneous read on the motivations behind Zsasz's actions.

_Right.  Because I'm just the help._

Was that truly how Victor felt?  Like nothing more than an _employee_ , even after everyth-- 

Deeply discomfited, Oswald abruptly drained the contents of his glass in an effort to wash away the bitterness of the thought.  He reached for the nearby decanter, splashing another precious measure of top-shelf Japanese whiskey into the glass.

It was not Zsasz's way, to deliberately flaut, undermine, or otherwise attempt to circumvent the Penguin's authority.  To the contrary; with the exception of the... _business_ with Sofia, he had never in the entire span of Zsasz's employ had reason to doubt the man's dedication to his work or the sincerity of his fealty. 

Indeed, since their relationship had taken its curious, unexpected turn and deepened in such a startling and unforeseen way, the kingpin had never felt so secure in his position as when those lethal, distracting hands were upon him, or when he found himself caught within the scarred, unexpectedly tender snare of his enforcer's arms.

_He'll be missing it._

It struck him as profoundly as a paradigm shift, the realization that contrary to his barbed assertion, Zsasz was as much to thank for Martin's safekeeping as Oswald himself was.

 _At times more, perhaps_ , he conceded with private chagrin, thinking back to instances where Zsasz had looked after both of them with such a deft and subtle sleight-of-hand as to pass without thanks or fanfare, or even notice.

Oswald had found himself shocked by the quiet depth of the usually unshakable killer's reaction, and by his own boldness, in daring to raise a hand to a man with such a storied capacity for violence without fear of reprisal.  He realized in hindsight that Zsasz had made no move to answer in kind, taking Oswald's outburst on the chin, so to speak, and while not _cowed_ , by any stretch, still holding his tongue and deferring to the kingpin's authority rather than express himself further, in spite of the glaringly evident divergence of opinion on the matter of firearms education and Martin's safety.

_And if I’m not here?  What then?_


	54. The wild deer, wand'ring here & there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Hey, pal,” Zsasz said upon Martin’s approach, the fondness in his tone tempered with regret, and distance as he stepped around the boy to offload the crate in his arms into the bed of a half-loaded truck. He cut a brief glance in Oswald’s direction before turning back to give Martin his full attention, though he remained standing straight rather than crouching to Martin’s level as he so often did, and kept a careful measure of space between them. “What’s up?”_
> 
> _Martin stepped closer, only to stop short at the subtle shift in Zsasz’s body language. His eyes marked the suppressed retreat in the set of the enforcer’s shoulders, the aborted movement of his hand in the boy's direction before long fingers curled in on themselves and dropped back to Zsasz's side._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel seriously compelled to preface this with an apology about how long it has taken me to update, and a warning that it may honestly take me equally as long to update again. Life has been absolutely insane of late, and with the endless progression of recent developments, it does not look to be getting any less Arkham-level crazy any time soon. So, if you can stick it out, and not lose faith that I am not, in fact, abandoning this piece when it takes me over a month to post anything, I will do my level best not to disappoint. I really am trying, but I am currently ass-deep in my busy season, and have barely time to pencil sleep into the margins of my calendar, let alone writing, so...
> 
> For those of you who are still with me, many thanks for your continued readership, and your patience. This chapter is for you.
> 
> The next installment is somewhat written, but needs some hard edits and reshaping. Fingers crossed I will be able to steal time to spend with it sooner rather than later.
> 
> Blanket spoiler warnings for _Gotham_ season 5 still apply (but you knew that already).
> 
> Title for this chapter taken from a line of Blake's inimitable _Auguries of Innocence_.
> 
> Comments are fuel for my fire. <3

LIV.  The wild deer, wand'ring here & there

 _Don't you think you'll be better off_  
_Without me tied around your neck, it's like the way your_  
_Body pulls me underneath where I can't breathe_  
_I'm tired of talking, I've been screaming all day_

 _Don't you think we'll be better off_  
_Without temptation to regress, to fake tenderness_  
_Waiting to see someone we won't know for long_  
_In cities we'll only leave_

 _\--To Belong_ , Daughter

\+ + +

“Hello, Jim.”

Startled, Jim glanced up from the latest supply request Lucius had submitted for Haven to find himself beneath the keen, incisive weight of familiar jade eyes.  They were as arresting as they had ever been; more so, even, for the brittle edges of enmity and spite that were conspicuously lacking as they fixed upon him, replaced instead by a tentative warmth that had been absent since the earliest days of their admittedly uneven acquaintance.  “Oswald.”

Inwardly relishing the element of surprise afforded him both by the tender hour and being the last ‘visitor’ Jim might have expected, Oswald pointedly shut the door to the captain’s office behind him, leaving his tower of muscle-for-hire and their blue-polyestered escort in an uneasy stare-off just outside.

Feeling underdressed in his shirtsleeves and slacks rumpled from too many sleepless, over-caffeinated hours spent putting out paper fires, Jim swallowed against the sudden dryness of his throat.  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He winced inwardly at his fraught choice of words, though it did have the unforeseen bonus of making the Penguin’s eyes spark briefly with amusement. 

“I had hoped I might convince you to join me this evening for a brief repast.”

Jim blinked, nonplussed.  _Okay…_ “Why not just send a summons with one of your lackeys?”

“Well, I, ah--”  Oswald floundered briefly, looking as wrongfooted as Jim felt.  “Nothing beats a personal touch, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I suppose.”  Jim thought back to the strangeness and intimacy of the night Zsasz had spent at the precinct, before the Scarecrow and his minions had seen fit to crash the party and it had all devolved into chaos.  He hesitated. “...Is he all right?”

+

_Oswald hesitated upon the threshold of the wedged open door of the Citadel’s service entrance to watch his enforcer cross the loading area of the underground parking garage in the course of helping Oswald’s minions shift crates of ammunition slated for delivery to the Sirens, admiring the play of muscle and sinew beneath pale, scarred skin bared by the rolled sleeves of Zsasz’s t-shirt._

_He swallowed against the bitter pill of the half-formed apology weighing his tongue as he saw Martin dart across his line of sight and into Zsasz’s path, stopping the man in his tracks with the weight of that huge mahogany stare and the fraught expression on his small face._

_“Hey, pal,” Zsasz said upon Martin’s approach, the fondness in his tone tempered with regret, and distance as he stepped around the boy to offload the crate in his arms into the bed of a half-loaded truck.  He cut a brief glance in Oswald’s direction before turning back to give Martin his full attention, though he remained standing straight rather than crouching to Martin’s level as he so often did, and kept a careful measure of space between them.  “What’s up?”_

_Martin stepped closer, only to stop short at the subtle shift in Zsasz’s body language.  His eyes marked the suppressed retreat in the set of the enforcer’s shoulders, the aborted movement of his hand in the boy's direction before long fingers curled in on themselves and dropped back to Zsasz's side._

_“I’m gonna need to keep my distance til your pop cools down some, so we might not be seeing as much of each other for a little while.”  Zsasz saw Martin’s face fall, a maw of guilt spreading its jaws in his guts at the way the kid seemed to curl in on himself, the eagerness and worry in that bright gaze tempered by confusion and hurt at Zsasz’s withdrawal._

_“_ Hey _, that’s not on you, babe.  That’s on me. I was outta line, and I gotta be able to stick around and keep you and your pop safe, so that means not overstepping myself so much that I get thrown out on my ass.”_

_He watched Martin avert his gaze to the small notebook he carried, dogeared and clutched tightly shut, seemingly at a loss for all of those hastily scribbled words that had crowded the pages before the boy had come dashing out to share them with one of the few adults who had always had a moment to spare for him._

_Zsasz swallowed past the fist of bitterness gripping his throat.  “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna be around, keeping an eye on you.  Okay?”_

_Though Martin forced himself to nod, he acutely felt the sting of the subtle but clear rejection in the way his father’s enforcer only briefly met his eyes before glancing away, toward something over the boy’s shoulder.  The edges of the notebook bit into Martin’s hands as he resisted the urge to reach out, the cold knot of shame that twisted his insides burning his eyes as he puzzled over what he could have done to replace the warmth in Victor’s eyes with the careful detachment he had been met with before the man looked past him._

_Oswald saw Martin’s lip wobble, briefly, before the boy composed himself in an impressive show of willpower for a ten-year-old, much to his adoptive father’s simultaneous pride and dismay.  His thoughts drifted, feeling raw in the wake of the brief glance Martin cut at him before making an abrupt retreat. He returned to himself beneath the knifesedge of his enforcer’s stare, blankly mirroring the kingpin’s own shame back at him._

_Zsasz lowered his chin with a deferential utterance of “_ Boss _,” before turning back to the dwindling stack of crates still waiting to be shifted, leaving Oswald on the backfoot, quite at a loss for what to say to suture the sudden distance yawning widely as a wound between them.  
_

+

Though he knew well to whom the detective was referring, a shiv of guilt compelled Oswald to dissemble.  “...Who?”

Jim’s stare was like the half-dozen blades lining the top of Oswald’s dresser on the nights the kingpin was able to persuade his enforcer to put aside duty long enough to _stay_.  “Victor.”

Oswald found himself on the defensive, much to his chagrin.  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Feeling caught out, Jim floundered briefly in turn.  “...No reason.”

Keenly familiar with the other man’s tells, Oswald’s gaze thinned to an edge.  The unvoiced _is that your final answer, detective?_ was writ plain upon the air as they matched stares across the cluttered no-man's land of the detective’s desk.


End file.
